Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy demands Congress pass a bill to label some social media apps as potentially dangerous to mental health.
It’s no secret that traditional social media sites have evolved over 20 years, and not particularly in good ways. Recent media outlets have published countless articles revealing studies on how our youth are being negatively affected by unrealistic content circulating on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and X (formerly Twitter).
Monday, June 17, 2024, we learned Dr. Vivek Murthy, United States Surgeon General, is demanding a bill be passed by Congress to label these social media apps, just as it does on cigarettes and alcohol. He says the threat of social media to our children and youth requires urgent action, stating “the mental health crisis among young people is an emergency.” The New York Times op-ed article is timely, as we are embarking on other changes in social media platforms that will impose on our time and disrupt our focus.
Murthy says, “social media has emerged as an important contributor,” when speaking about the mental health crisis among our youth and teens. As 2019 JAMA study reports, teens who spend three hours a day on social media double their risk of depression. But teens spend close to five hours a day on social media (the ones you know, the ones we listed above), so how does that fair? Does that increase the odds of depression in teens by 25%?
“I put forward this call for a warning because I think it’s essential that parents know what we now know, which is that there are significant harms associated with social media use,” Murthy told CNN.
This will not be an alarming call to action for Congress, since it has criticized social media networks for its harmful threats to children who regularly use sites like Facebook and Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg has even visited Capitol Hill to apologize for the influence his social network has had on children who’ve taken their own lives due to online bullying and harassment.
The Surgeon General’s tobacco label was deployed in 1965, which has led to a significant decline in cigarette smoking over the last 50 years. And even though Congress is well aware of the dangers social media poses, it hasn’t taken the leap to officially warn the public of these hazards.
In light of this alarming information, I’d like to bring attention to the fact that social media was originally developed to be (as noted by their slogans):
- A place for friends (you know, thanks, Tom – you probably had it righter than anyone else, which is why MySpace failed).
- Free and always will be (not if time equals money, cause the overabundance of irrelevant ad content is insane).
- Better connecting you to the pages and groups you care about (I care about my friends, what happened to them?).
- Blaze your glory (great in theory, poor in execution – cause my glory is more than 280 characters).
- Front page of the internet (ok, Reddit, that wasn’t a bad start).
Anyone who has been on social media since its inception likely recalls those days of morality, when we shared meaningful content that made our friends, family, colleagues and connections smile. Pictures from last weekend’s birthday party that we can now blast out on a digital platform instead of having doubles or triples made at CVS one-hour photo? Absolutely, sign us all up!
And that’s what we did. We became strangely infatuated and obsessed with seeing updates from our friends, learning more about who they are without having to sit down and talk, and getting our information delivered to our fingertips instead of our front doors.
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
A slow increase in volatile behavior has corrupted and tainted the original intentions of social media.
That’s why Tribel was launched in 2022 to TAKE BACK SOCIAL.
Tribel is a healthier and more collaborative platform for people to connect in meaningful ways through genuine interest in common topics. Unlike other social media apps, you are not forced to see things in your content feed that you don’t want to see. Tribel does not invade your privacy in order to show you content it “thinks” you want, it allows you to be in complete control. If you haven’t checked out Tribel yet, you should. It’s being called the Facebook killer for good reason. It’s about time we appreciate content that matters to us, not what some bot or AI-generated crap thinks matters to us.
Join Tribel. Take back social.
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