mental health

Vivek Murthy, Ed Markey Sound the Alarm on Harmful Social Media during SPH Visit

The US Surgeon General and US Senator said smartphones and social media apps are exacerbating the mental health challenges young people face today.

Nearly one in three high school girls in the United States seriously contemplated suicide in 2021, and nearly three in five teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless—the highest level reported in nearly a decade, according to recent data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy noted during a visit to the School of Public Health on Monday, June 5.

“One in three adolescent girls who consider taking their life—that is an extraordinary number that we should never allow ourselves to get used to or numb to,” Murthy said. 

Murthy joined US Senator Ed Markey for a Public Health Conversation at the School to discuss solutions to the urgent mental health crisis that is plaguing the nation’s youth at a level unlike any previous generation of young people. More than 1,000 people attended or tuned in to the event, which was held in person and online. 

In addition to gun violence and climate change, excessive social media use and social isolation are contributing to the worsening mental health among today’s children and teens, said Murthy, who, along with Markey, has prioritized youth mental health improvement. In extraordinary moves last month, the surgeon general’s office issued separate public health warnings about the harms of social media driving insecurities, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, as well as the nation’s growing “epidemic of loneliness.”

The speakers acknowledged that social media can have benefits, serving as spaces for youth to find community, or for health researchers and other experts to use as effective intervention platforms, but the way in which many children and teens actually utilize social media apps is causing real harm. In speaking with youth across the US, Murthy said teens have told him that using social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok makes them feel worse about themselves and their friendships, and that they can’t seem to control the time they spend on these sites. 

“These platforms are often designed to maximize the amount of time that our kids are spending on them,” Murthy said. “One in three adolescents are now saying that they stay up to midnight or later on week nights on their screens, and that’s predominantly time using social media. What I care about as a parent and as a doctor is maximizing the health and well-being of my kids and all of our kids, and these platforms need to be designed for that outcome.”

To curb this growing dependence on social media, Markey secured $15 million in funding to support research by the National Institutes of Health that will address the impact of technology and media on children and teens, but much more needs to be done, he said. He recently reintroduced the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), which would prohibit internet companies from collecting personal data of users aged 13 to 16 without consent, ban targeted advertising to children and teens, and establish a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights” for teens and a youth marketing and privacy division at the Federal Trade Commission.

“Big tech is a big problem,” Markey said. “Big-tech CEOs leverage data about kids and teens and use it against them, serving up an endless stream of toxic content that grabs their attention and keeps them scrolling. We need a definitive statement by the federal government of the impact that social media is having upon the children in our country.”

Both officials said the onus should not be placed on parents to address on their own. 

“Parents everywhere are seeing kids in crisis,” Murthy said. “We cannot put the entire burden of managing social media on the shoulders of parents. When a child is ready to drive, we don’t tell a parent, ‘why don’t you go out and inspect the brakes by yourself?’ because that’s not a reasonable expectation.”

He encouraged parents to start having conversations early with their children about social media and the platforms that they use, how they are using the apps, and how this engagement makes them feel. Teens are often aware that their social media use is having a detrimental effect on their mental and emotional health, but they don’t know what to do about it, Murthy said. Identifying “tech-free zones” in the day that are reserved for non-tech activities is also important, the surgeon general said. 

“A lot of our kids don’t get training or the skills to handle conflict or to understand emotions,” Murthy said, adding that it takes on average 11 years from when a child exhibits mental health symptoms to receive treatment in the US. “I actually think those skills are just as important as learning to write and do math in terms of your success in life and your overall health and well-being. And we’ve got to make it easier for people to recognize that there’s no shame in admitting that you need help.”

Murthy also reassured parents that they are not alone in dealing with these challenges.

“Sometimes it seems like other parents and families have figured it out and that you’re the only family or only parent who’s struggling,” he said. “Let me just tell you that is not the case.”

The speakers also highlighted the need for legislative changes to increase mental health resources and improve access to care, including training more mental health providers, expanding insurance coverage for this care, reducing stigma around mental health, and training kids to maintain healthy relationships.

Markey called on his home state to lead the way with this legislation, as Massachusetts has done on other issues, such as becoming the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004.

“We’re not just the Bay State, we’re the Brain State, as well,” Markey said. “We have to be the leaders. State legislatures all across the country are passing anti-trans legislation, [there are] assaults upon Black and brown traditions and immigrant traditions in our country, and the young people are really feeling the effects of that. So we have a big responsibility.”

Public officials, workplaces, schools, and other institutions should be informed and driven by kindness, generosity, service, and friendship, Murthy said.

“This moment—as hard as it is with all the crises that we are talking about today, as deep as that struggle is around mental health—the silver lining is that if we do this right, we can move our country closer to those values,” Murthy said. “We can build the kind of community where none of our children has to grow up thinking that they don’t matter, or that they’re less than because of their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, or because of the fact that they may be an introvert, or they may be struggling with their mental health. We all want the kind of country our kids deserve, and one that will ultimately be embracing of everyone from all walks of life.”