Congress has few opportunities these days to act on an issue that not only has bipartisan support but also addresses a key concern of parents across a broad spectrum of American communities.
But lawmakers have that chance with a proposal by US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy that would raise awareness of the mental health risks and other harms that adolescents face online.
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents,” Murthy wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times Monday.
Such a requirement would require congressional action, and lawmakers should abide.
Murthy’s call comes a year after he issued an advisory laying out the extent of the dangers, many of which are all too familiar to parents whose children have faced online bullying, threats, or other harms that have resulted in depression, anxiety, loss of self-esteem, or other mental health effects.
We are still learning about the full extent and causes of the mental health crisis affecting young people, but there is plenty of evidence that social media content — the average adolescent consumes nearly 5 hours of such content every day — plays a major part. Mental health professionals cite social media as the top driver of mental health issues in young people, surpassing social isolation and other external causes by a 2-to-1 margin.
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In a recent Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of parents of 13- to 17-year-olds surveyed said they are extremely or very worried about their kids being exposed to explicit content. A significant percentage of parents also reported concerns about social media messages placing pressure on their kids to act a certain way, leading to harassment or bullying, causing anxiety or depression, or harming teens’ self-esteem.
Murthy pointed out, correctly, that the warning alone will not be enough to keep kids safe. There are a number of bipartisan bills that have been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including those that would boost transparency requirements on social media companies and give the Justice Department better tools to investigate and prosecute online child exploitation crimes.
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Those should get a vote.
But requiring warnings is a measure upon which lawmakers can act quickly. And history has demonstrated the effectiveness of warnings, and the resulting increased awareness, in keeping children and all Americans safer. From increased public awareness about seat belt use and the dangers of drunken driving, to labels on cigarettes, knowledge is an important public safety tool and warnings are a cost-effective safety measure. And requiring social media companies to give parents and teens greater information about the dangers of their products makes common sense.
It’s clear that tech company executives will not, on their own initiative, take the steps necessary to protect children.
At a Senate hearing on children’s online safety in January, Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company Meta, was asked if he disputed the findings in Murthy’s advisory.
“No, but I think it’s important to characterize it correctly,” Zuckerberg said. “I think what he was flagging in the report is that there seems to be correlation. And obviously the mental health issue is very important. So, it’s something that needs to be studied further.”
“Is your platform safe for kids?” pressed Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia.
“I believe it is,” Zuckerberg said. “There is a difference between correlation and causation.”
The mental health and safety of children are not matters of semantics. As Murthy himself stated in his op-ed, “in an emergency, you don’t have the luxury to wait for perfect information.”
“You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly,” Murthy wrote.
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That is exactly what lawmakers must do.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
