‘Social media is like driving a car without a speed limit’: the US surgeon general fights for the happiness of young people

It was the silence that worried America’s top doctor when he visited the country’s university campuses last year.

Dr. Vivek Murthy went to places like Duke, the University of Texas and Arizona State, but so many young people were wearing earphones and looking at laptops and phones that the common areas were incredibly quiet. Where was the loud chatter that Murthy remembered from his college days?

“Students said to me, ‘How do we start a conversation?’” the US surgeon general told the Guardian. “It’s just not the culture anymore to talk to each other. It is an indictment of the trends we have seen.”

Figures released Wednesday reveal one possible impact of that screen obsession: For the first time since the data was first collected in 2012, 15- to 24-year-olds in North America say they are less happy than older generations. The gap is closing in Western European countries and in March Murthy flew to London to continue his campaign against falling happiness levels, especially among young people. He is also concerned about the well-being of young people in Japan, South Korea and India.

Replacing people-to-people social connection, whether through clubs, sports teams, volunteering or faith groups, is a particular concern for the Yorkshire-born medic. Education, housing and transport initiatives that do not focus on improving well-being are also worrying.

But perhaps the biggest problem, in his view, is the explosion of social media use, which has caused “extraordinary damage.”

It is striking that Murthy focuses so hard on this social issue. At a conference at the LSE in London on Monday, academics and researchers in the rapidly developing field of wellbeing science gave him a standing ovation.

There are clear physical consequences of misery that world leaders must consider. The social disconnect in the US has led to “a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease, a 32% increase in the risk of stroke and a 50% increase in the risk of dementia in the elderly,” he said.

Last year, Murthy, who was first appointed to his role by Barack Obama and again by Joe Biden, issued a formal warning across the US that social media posed “a significant risk of harm” to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. “We do not yet have enough evidence to determine whether social media is sufficiently safe” to use, the report said.

“I’m still waiting for companies to show us data that tells us their platforms are actually secure,” he added.

He compared technology companies to 20th century auto giants that produced vehicles without seat belts and airbags until legislation required them.

“What’s happening on social media is the equivalent of having children in cars with no safety features and driving on roads with no speed limits,” he said. “No traffic lights and no rules at all. And we tell them, ‘You know what, do your best, figure out how to do it.’ It’s crazy when you think about it.”

The result is that parents feel like “this whole thing (managing the impact of social media) has been dumped on their shoulders.”

Murthy said that between 2000 and 2020, there has been a 70% decline in the amount of face-to-face time that young people in the US spent with their friends. Meanwhile, “our recent data shows us that adolescents spend an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media… a third of adolescents stay on their devices until midnight or later on weekday evenings.”

Last Sunday he met a group of young people in a west London park and concluded that their phones were feeding them a diet of “headlines constantly telling them that the world is broken and the future is bleak”.

“And they said: you get that again and again. You start to internalize that. You lose a little bit of the sense of hope.”

He is also interested in how the growing use of social media fuels the “hustle culture,” which teaches young people that in addition to studying and growing up, they need to build a “personal brand” and even an income stream.

“I ask (young people) what hustle culture tells you about success,” he said. “They say a version of fame, followers and fortune. I’ve heard too many young people say what they think is what they really need to do now is build their brand. And they don’t say that ironically.”

He said social media companies should “limit or eliminate features that encourage children to drive up to other people who like, repost and comment on their posts,” such as buttons and infinite scroll mechanisms that can be addictive, undermine self-esteem can damage and erode over time. available for other activities.

“The platforms have the power to do that,” he said.

Governments have been slow to install mandatory guardrails on social media platforms and should have done so a decade ago, he said. “What has happened is a fundamental failure of governments to protect young people from the harmful effects of a new technology, and it is no longer new.”

To counter the trend, Murthy wants governments to start measuring their policies in terms of their impact on social connection in the real world.

“Think about policies that divide our cities and towns with highways and roads and separate us from each other,” he said. “Think about the power of policy to actually create public transport and bring people back together. Home design can have a powerful impact on the way people come together.”

In 2021, the Leader of the British Opposition Keir Starmer said that a Labor government would weigh spending plans based on their impact on well-being, in addition to national income.

But for now, he likens the social media status quo to a doctor who gets to run a hospital where the floors are so slippery that people fall and break their hips, patients suffer blood clots because drugs aren’t administered, and get infected because dirty equipment is used. being used. His point is that this wouldn’t happen. Protection is needed immediately, he said.

“If you have a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, you don’t have to wait three to five years,” he said. “Our children’s childhood is happening now. I’m afraid there isn’t enough sense of urgency among the government.”