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The nearly ubiquitous, unregulated use of social media is the leading cause of widespread mental health struggles among America’s youth, according to six former U.S. surgeons general appearing at a ���㽶��Ƶ symposium on Oct. 27 co-hosted with the United Nations Development Programme.

“When you have 31% of United States children, one out of three, having some kind of mental issue in the last 30 days, you have a problem,” said Antonia Coello Novello, who served as surgeon general under President George H.W. Bush and received an honorary degree from ���㽶��Ƶ at Commencement in June. “But what worries me the most, one out of five have thought about suicide. Sixteen percent have made a plan, and 9% have accomplished it.”

“I believe that social media is one of the biggest causes of children having problems,” Novello said, citing cyberbullying, loneliness, and body issues exacerbated by social media. 

The panel discussion, which also involved a partnership between ���㽶��Ƶ and , took place on Day 2 of A Global Turning Point: Why Youth Well-Being Is in Crisis—and What We Must Do About It, the three-day symposium at ���㽶��Ƶ with the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office.

It was only the third time that many surgeons general had convened to discuss a public health issue, underscoring the importance of the ���㽶��Ƶ symposium. Eight surgeons general had also spoken at ���㽶��Ƶ in September 2023, when convened a roundtable to discuss ways to address the national mental health crisis.

Some 500 people attended the surgeons general panel on Oct. 27 at Spaulding Auditorium, and more than 460 people have . Tim Wilens, chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, moderated the discussion.

���㽶��Ƶ economist David Blanchflower, who helped organize the symposium, noted at another session that the lack of in-person relationships hinders the brain development of important pathways for social and emotional behavior.

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Students from the Geisel School of Medicine were among the 500 attendees at the surgeons general forum, which was part of the symposium with the United Nations Development Programme on the global crisis in youth well-being. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

The former surgeons general on the panel recommended creating “tech-free zones” and shutting off smartphones at a set time each night to help combat the round-the-clock urge to check TikTok, Instagram and other popular apps.

“That keeps the kids from being on the phone all night. … These are things that parents could do today, you know?” said Joycelyn Elders, U.S. surgeon general during the Clinton administration.

Other suggested tools for addressing the crisis included removing the stigma associated with mental illness and boosting the number of psychiatrists in the United States.

“Parents often neglect to seek care for their children due to embarrassment and fear that such a diagnosis might interfere with the child’s future,” said David Satcher, surgeon general during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

“We must acknowledge and find ways to overcome the barriers of stigma. We need to build public awareness regarding mental health and effective treatment. We must address a serious shortage of mental health providers. We also must address the lack of training available for many communities.”

Shifting the focus from treatment to prevention is another change that could help, said Jerome Adams, surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

“We spend a disproportionate amount of our resources on diagnosis and treatment and not on prevention and wellness,” Adams said. “I think oftentimes that conversation comes at the expense of thinking about mental health, not as mental illness, but as mental wellness, and what can we do to create communities that are more supportive of our young people, so that they don’t have problems in the first place, so that they don’t feel the need to self-medicate.”

Vivek Murthy, surgeon general during the Obama and Biden administrations, said an estimated 95% of minors use social media, and there’s no data that demonstrates social media is safe for youths. 

“But what is also problematic is the data that shows us that adolescents who were using 3.5 hours a day or more of social media faced double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms,” Murthy said.

 “And the average use today of social media among adolescents is 4.8 hours. It’s well beyond that threshold. And by the way, that’s not all screen time, that is just social media time.”

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Former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, flanked by colleagues Vivek Murthy and Antonia Coello Novello, makes a point at the ���㽶��Ƶ-UNDP symposium. (Photo by Robert Gill)

Murthy said there is no accountability for social media companies, and recommended safety standards for minors who use social media. 

“Young people are particularly susceptible to social comparison, social suggestion,” Murthy said. “Impulse control isn’t fully developed yet, and so my belief is that delaying the use of social media until past that early adolescence, until at least 16, and potentially later, depending on a child’s maturity. … I think that is eminently reasonable and advisable.”

Panelists agreed technology can be used for good, including predictive analytics and telehealth. 

But reining in AI and other fast-spreading technologies presents a huge challenge.

“I don’t think anybody fully appreciated what the ultimate consequences of the digital age would be upon us, and so now we’re trying to fix it because we didn’t recognize it to begin with, because there was so much enthusiasm of how we can aggregate data, how we can do predictive analytics, how we can get better solutions to problems by, in effect, crowdsource,” said Richard Carmona, who also served as surgeon general under George W. Bush.

“I think that AI and the aggregated data and predictive analytics hold great hope when we look at the mental health challenges. For instance, if we had a national strategy as it relates to mental health and we were accumulating that data and appropriately using the aggregated data to make better decisions as we move forward, that would work.”