US Surgeon General demands social media warnings to fight \u201cmental health crisis\u201d Instagram: drvivekmurthyUS Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for warning labels on social media to fight the \u201cmental health crisis\u201d in a similar fashion to the warning on tobacco products. Murthy published an opinion piece on the topic in the New York Times on June 17, 2024, and detailed his reasons behind wanting the warning. Largely based around mental health concerns with adolescents, the US Surgeon General says social media has a massive impact on nearly all of its users. Murthy said: \u201cAdolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours. \u201cAdditionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.\u201d Tobacco products feature several different warnings from the surgeon general, including \u201cQuitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health\u201d and \u201cSmoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy.\u201d Murthy did a few tests to see how effective the tobacco labels are, and found that the surgeon general\u2019s warnings can \u201cincrease awareness and change behavior.\u201d He wrote: \u201cWhen asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children\u2019s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes.\u201d Vivek is calling on the US Congress to authorize warnings on social media, as he\u2019ll need their approval before anything can be added. The US Surgeon General isn\u2019t the only member of the government looking to make social media better for children. Back in March, Florida Governor Ron Desantis signed a bill banning kids under 14-years-old from accessing social media in the state, and will force platforms to delete their accounts if they exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Surgeon General demands social media warnings to fight \u201cmental health crisis\u201d Instagram: drvivekmurthyUS Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for warning labels on social media to fight the \u201cmental health crisis\u201d in a similar fashion to the warning on tobacco products. Murthy published an opinion piece on the topic in the New York Times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}