Social media warning labels

Should social media have a surgeon general's warning for teens? Viewpoints from multiple sides.

Jun 28, 2024

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What’s happening

Last week, in a New York Times essay, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms. It would specifically target teens, warning them and their parents of purported mental health risks associated with social media use.

A warning would serve a similar purpose as those on alcohol and tobacco products such as cigarette packets, which include warnings like “WARNING: Smoking causes head and neck cancer.”

Murthy’s appeal: Murthy cited research that found frequent social media use among teens is associated with mental health harms such as anxiety and depression, a relationship he says is contributing to a “mental health crisis among young people.” Beyond warning labels, Murthy also called for legislation that regulates the content shown to teens by social media algorithms, prevents the collection of sensitive user data from kids, and restricts features like infinite scroll and push notifications.

Recent history: Last year, Murthy issued a surgeon general’s advisory that characterized social media use as a health risk for teens, calling on policy makers and tech platforms to adopt new solutions such as enforcing minimum age requirements and tightening data privacy.

Murthy’s call for a warning label comes as a number of other government-led initiatives have targeted social media platforms over the past year, including the forced sale of TikTok from parent company ByteDance, a lawsuit by 40 states against Meta alleging it intentionally addicts children, and New York signing-into-law restrictions on how social media algorithms can suggest content to minors.

Draft legislation focused on broader online protections for kids has circulated since 2022 in the form of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Tech platforms already face tighter restrictions in Europe through the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

The debate: Some observers note that congressional legislation implementing Murthy’s proposed warning is not likely in the short-term. His recommendation garnered support from many online safety advocates while others criticized the idea as based on unconvincing evidence or potentially unconstitutional.

This week, we bring you the viewpoints from multiple sides. They inform the broader debate on teen social media use and regulation. Let us know what you think.

Notable viewpoints

More supportive of a surgeon general’s warning label:

There is compelling evidence social media use causes teen mental health harms.

A 2019 study found teens that spend 3+ hours per day on social media face roughly twice the risk of developing anxiety and depression symptoms as those that don’t regularly use social media, an alarming association given a 2023 Gallup study found teens spend an average of 4.8 hours on social media per day. (Summarized from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in his essay.)
According to a meta-analysis of 26 studies, the risk of depression in adolescents increased by 13% for each additional hour they spent on social media.
Controlled experiments across 12 studies have shown that reducing social media time leads to declines in depression risk, which implies a causal relationship between social media use and well-being, not just a correlation.
According to a 2023 Gallup study, 41% of teens with the highest levels of social media use reported their mental health as poor or very poor compared to 23% of teens with the lowest use; 10% of the highest-use group reported thoughts of suicidal ideation or self-harm within the past 12 months compared to 5% of the lowest-use group.
There is evidence of a growing mental health crisis among teens since 2012 with limited alternative explanations to technology use; an analysis of National Survey on Drug Use and Health data found there was a 145% increase in major depression for girls and a 161% increase for boys between 2012-2021, compared to relatively flat rates between 1991-2011.
According to a 2022 Digital Wellness Lab Pulse Survey, 46% of adolescents say social media use makes them feel worse about their bodies.

Warning labels would be useful tools for reducing teen social media use.

Warning labels on alcohol and tobacco products have been shown to increase awareness of negative health effects and help curb their use.
“A surgeon general’s warning label...would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.” (Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in his essay.)
A social media warning label would help empower parents and make it easier for them to manage their kids’ social media and smartphone use.

Reductions in teen social media use are urgently needed.

While there are some conflicting findings in the research on the strength of the relationship between mental health and social media use, the public health community cannot afford to wait for certainty in addressing the teen mental health crisis. (Summarized from essay by John Haidt, social psychologist and social media safety advocate.)
“We’ve known for at least seven years that social media is a key cause of the adolescent mental health crisis. Dr. Murthy’s call for a warning label is the latest sign that the tide is turning.” (Jean Twenge, psychology professor and social media safety advocate.)

A warning label would be a first step in promoting broader reforms.

Putting a warning label on social media could help pave the way for other much needed reforms including stricter enforcement of age minimums for social media use and smartphone bans in schools.

More opposed to a surgeon general’s warning label:

Evidence that social media use causes teen mental health harms is lacking.

In 2023, the National Academy of Sciences found through its own research review that there was not enough support for the conclusion social media use harms teen health at the population level, and that mixed experiences (i.e., positive and negative) among teens contribute to the lack of clear causation.
A 2024 meta-analysis across 27 studies found that there was a statistically insignificant relationship between social media use and mental health, concluding that reducing social media use does not improve mental health.
According to a 2024 meta-analysis across 73 studies, an individual’s existing social support system and self-esteem had a stronger effect on their subjective well-being (SWB) than social media use, and findings did not support an association between social media use and SWB.
The primary study cited by Surgeon General Murthy in his argument for a warning label casts a wide net around a large and diverse group of social platforms – including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest – which are all used differently by teens, a reality that likely obscures the effect of their individual use.
“The science simply does not support this action and issuing advisories based on fear will only weaken our trust in the institutions that wield them in this way.” (Candice Odgers, psychology professor at UC Irvine.)

Social media use can be beneficial to teens.

Social media use can help young people connect with friends and be creative; a 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 80% of teens said it helped them feel more connected to their friends’ lives while 71% said it helped them through hard times.
According to a 2024 study of teens aged 10-18, social media use does not negatively impact social skills and can promote offline interaction between friends.
Social media use can be a valuable outlet and foster connection for specific groups such as the LGBTQ community.

A surgeon general’s warning label on social media is not constitutional.

The First Amendment does not permit the government to require companies to broadcast the government’s preferred message unless there is proof that the company’s product causes harm; social media has not been proven to cause harm.
Supreme Court precedent in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) – which struck down government efforts to regulate the sale of violent video games to minors due to a lack of evidence connecting the games to mass shootings – suggests a similar warning label proposal for social media would be rejected.

Warning labels on social media could make things worse for teens.

Even though a warning label would be a small step, the assumption that “something is better than nothing” to help protect the mental health of teens is not necessarily true; some interventions, when not done carefully, can have inverse consequences for teens by drawing attention to something as negative and making them feel negatively about themselves.
A warning label may actually attract teens to social media, similar to how the addition of the “parental advisory” label on albums in the 1980s was shown to be ineffective in shielding children from mature themes in music.

Other viewpoints:

A warning label doesn’t go far enough; broader legislation like the draft Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would do more to protect children online by holding tech platforms accountable for users’ safety and mental health.
More sweeping legislation like the draft Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would go too far in restrictions on social media use and amount to censorship that infringes on users’ constitutional rights. (Summarized from statement by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).)
Rather than stick general warnings on social media platforms, we should do more to equip parents with tools and education on how to monitor their kids’ technology use and prevent its potential negative consequences.
There is not currently a clear answer on social media regulation; the extent to which studies on social media’s mental health effects find conflicting results or are interpreted differently depending on the researcher demonstrates the complexity of the science underlying social media policy recommendations.
A surgeon general’s warning label, by itself, could let social media companies off the hook as a veil that removes their responsibility, dampening their focus on developing more effective protections for users.

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