Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion on CNN.
The US Surgeon General is clear: Get your kids off social media. And while he didn’t say as much, maybe spend less time on it yourself.
In a dire report, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned of myriad dangers from social media platforms designed to be as addictive as possible, and laid out just how little we know about their potential harms.
“For too long, we have placed the entire burden of managing social media on the shoulders of parents and kids, despite the fact that these platforms are designed by some of the most talented engineers and designers in the world to maximize the amount of time that our kids spend on them,” Murthy told CNN. “So that is not a fair fight. It’s time for us to have the backs of parents and kids.”
The stats are stunning: Up to 95% of kids ages 13-17 report being on social media, as do almost 40% of kids between the ages of 8 and 12. One-third of those older kids say that they use social media “almost constantly.”
What we know so far – and what a simple observation also suggests – is that social media fuels anxiety and depression, worsens our sleep, contributes to online bullying, and makes girls especially feel bad about themselves and their bodies. It is often easier to be cruel from behind a screen, and it’s very easy to feel left out and isolated when you open up Instagram and see your friends hanging out without you.
Social media platforms are designed to target content directly to your interests, and they then allow you to scroll through it forever, creating a feedback loop that some researchers have suggested triggers an addiction-like reaction. (In response to criticism that kids aren’t able to stop scrolling, social media platforms have implemented tools like time limits – which are widely perceived as ineffective – to help parents and teens control their usage.)
Anyone who has left the house in the last few years has no doubt seen this in action: Couples out on dates, both staring at their phones; families ostensibly spending time together, except that the kids are staring at iPads while mom and dad scroll away; rude and self-involved people seemingly of all ages and backgrounds on TikTok or playing video games or listening to music or talking on speaker phone out loud in public. I do it, too: If I’m bored for even half a second, I pick up my phone – which is, after all, an endless entertainment machine.
This is not healthy, and as Murthy says, these platforms and the devices they live on have been designed by some of the smartest people alive to keep us scrolling. It’s especially dangerous for young people, whose brains are still developing and who are still figuring out how to connect and socialize with other humans. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that adolescent mental health has declined as smartphones have proliferated.
According to the surgeon general’s advisory, “frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain in the amygdala (important for emotional learning and behavior) and the prefrontal cortex (important for impulse control, emotional regulation, and moderating social behavior), and could increase sensitivity to social rewards and punishments.”
Not everything about social media is negative. It does allow connection across place and culture – LGBTQ kids or those questioning their sexuality or gender identity, for example, may be able to find information and support outside of their communities. And anyone who feels like an outsider may be able to find their people online.
But there is a real question as to whether those benefits outweigh the tremendous harms. And it says something that many of the people designing this technology keep their children off of it, and send their own kids to screen-free schools. There is an emerging divide on screens, with the wealthy and educated pulling screens from schools, while poorer teens spend, on average, more than eight hours a day using screens for entertainment – two hours more than their more affluent peers, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media.
Black and Hispanic kids are exposed to much more screentime than White children. And while pricey private schools increasingly advertise their lack of screens, poor kids the world over increasingly see their learning tied to screens.
In a perfect world, parents would be involved and engaged enough to say no to smartphones for their kids, and to keep their children off of social media. But in the real world, families have wildly varying rules, and it can be socially isolating if your kid is the only one who isn’t allowed to text their friends or use Snapchat.
There’s also the simple fact that lots of parents are totally disengaged with their kids’ lives in general; some are neglectful, or struggling with addictions or their own problems, or simply not particularly attentive or interested in raising and protecting their own kids. Others would like to be more present, but the demands of work, other children, aging parents and the rest of a complicated life gets in the way. This is particularly true for those who are financially struggling, and may be cobbling together multiple jobs and more worried about keeping the rent paid and the lights on than about whether their kid is spending too much time on TikTok.
So, while parents of course need to do their part to protect their own kids, we also need institutions outside of the family to implement some rules and norms. That should start with social media companies. I’m not sure what the appropriate age is for social media, but I’m confident it’s not 12 and under, and there’s a good case to be made that 16 or 18 is more appropriate. These companies also need enforcement mechanisms beyond self-attestation.
Schools have a role to play, too. Administrators and teachers can encourage all parents to wait until a particular grade level to give their kids smartphones, or can institute a formal rule about what kids are and are not allowed to bring to school (saying yes, for example, to basic phones for emergencies, but not allowing smartphones).
Kids also need something else to do with their time. As poorer kids spend more time online, their richer peers are much more physically active. That leaves poorer kids not only more tied to screens and social media, but far less healthy overall, both physically and mentally.
This is a policy problem: As schools cut sports and physical education programs, kids from more affluent families can afford private clubs and lessons while many kids from poorer families cannot. Investing in sports for all would help give kids something to do other than scroll through social media or play video games, and would set them up for better physical and mental health as well.
It should be clear to anyone paying attention that the consequences of widespread social media use are complex, and that the better, more empathetic, more connected world we were promised is not the one we’re living in. These tools are not all bad, but they are also far from universally good. And young people, especially, are suffering. When a third of teenagers are using social media “almost constantly,” something has gone very wrong, and the consequences will have a long tail. We owe it to our children to fix it.
