Surgeon General calls for warning labels on social media platforms
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms to warn parents that using the platforms could harm teenagers' mental health.Warning labels – like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products – are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation's top health officials, but Dr. Murthy cannot require them unilaterally; the action requires congressional approval. No such legislation has yet been introduced in either house.A warning label would send a powerful message to parents “that social media has not been proven safe,” Dr. Murthy wrote in an essay published Monday in the opinion section of the New York Times.In his essay, he considered the effects of social media on children and adolescents to be...