Re: “U.S. top doc warns about social media risks” [May 24, Nation & World]: The surgeon general’s warning about social media is welcome and timely. The content, challenges to privacy, and deliberately addictive design of social media can lead teens to harm. But we risk making social media a convenient scapegoat for a mental health crisis that has deeper but equally actionable roots.
Sharply increasing income disparities put enormous strains on families and make higher education attainable only through staggering debt. Teens might claim that the dangers of social media are small relative to gun violence in their school or where they shop. Shaming rhetoric makes it dangerous to celebrate and wrestle with emerging gender identity and sexual orientation. The opiate epidemic destroyed households and legalization opened the market to cannabinoids of unprecedented and dangerous potency. The list of risks to teen mental health could go on; and what is more, today’s teens were born during or around the great recession of 2008.
If we believe the impact of early childhood adversity on lifetime physical and mental health risks, then many of today’s teens are experiencing a “second hit” on top of existing vulnerability. So, work for rational use of social media but fight to reduce the underlying challenges that social media amplifies.
Larry Wissow, Seattle, MD
Discussion about this post