I am rarely in favor of content censorship of any kind, but, like so many parents, I am deeply disturbed by the impact that a rudderless social media is having on our kids, specifically on their health.
I was reminded about it yet again this week with the sudden run on TikTok of an ancient Chinese herb, berberine, which is found in a barberry, golden seal or even a rhododendron plant. Teens are calling it “nature’s Ozempic,” and promoting it on social media for weight loss, despite that its effect on losing weight is quite small. Don’t get me wrong, berberine does have powerful metabolic effects in terms of lowering blood sugar and cholesterol, but it also impacts the gut and can cause bloating, gas and constipation with unknown long-term effects, which is exactly why a physician should be involved, not self-appointed teen experts on TikTok.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is right to put out an advisory warning that social media has become a huge risk to the health of our youth, increasing during the social isolation brought on by the pandemic, but present even before. Murthy spoke to me on SiriusXM’s Doctor Radio Reports recently and talked about the negative impact of social media on the self-esteem of children and teens.
Murthy said viewing thousands of images on social media causes teens to make dangerous comparisons to their own lives and images. He said this content is “driving social comparison at a time of adolescence when young people are going through a critical time of brain development, where they’re more susceptible to peer suggestion, per comparison and peer influence.”
The idea of vulnerable groups turning to social media for “connectivity” makes sense. Unfortunately, it is a trap, often leading to further stigmatization and cyberbullying.
A doctor like me can try to help by starting a conversation with parents and kids about social media and emphasizing the need for more personal interaction and media-free zones but it is unclear how much of an impact that will really make. The pull on our youth is strong. The social media culture is highly seductive and growing. Murthy noted that technology companies are “not transparent with the data they have about the health impact of their platforms on our kids,” meaning “we don’t even fully understand how bad some of these harms may be or which kids are most at risk.”
The surgeon general believes that technology companies can design their platforms in ways that support the health and well-being of our kids. I think this goal is laudable but naïve. Social media sites will find a way to pay lip service to the idea without instituting fundamental change, even in the face of increasing regulations which Murthy is right to suggest.
TikTok, for example, already has a health and wellness hub, but parading under that banner are many videos that mislead and misinform. I believe they will always find ways to infiltrate the brains of our youth, a backdoor that bypasses critical thinking, as Columbia psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Sultan said to me on Doctor Radio.
Don’t get me wrong, Murthy is absolutely right to compare the need for safety regulation for social media to what we already have in place for car seats or automobiles themselves. As a physician, I don’t think twice about the Food and Drug Administration demanding safety protocols for drug manufacturing and distribution, so why should social media be any different?
As Murthy said to me, policymakers have “a critical role” to play. They must create standards to protect young people from being exposed to “violence and sexual content,” “harassment and bullying” and “the features on social media that seek to manipulate them into spending more and more and more time” on platforms.
Again, a laudable goal. There is no doubt that the addictive impact of social media may rob our children of some of life’s key moments. And, for once, I have no problem with the idea of trying to restrict content much as the movie rating system kept me from seeing an X-rated movie when I was a kid.
But the problem is that these kinds of regulations are no longer effective, as social media sites (and teens) will easily find ways around them. Still, every parent with a developing child in this country shares the surgeon general’s concern and we must force action, even if we know that action will have limited impact.
Marc Siegel, MD, is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; the Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”