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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: Crises and Common Ground

Oct 2024 🇺🇸 Yale School of Management — Health & Veritas podcast

In this October 2024 episode of Yale School of Management's Health & Veritas podcast, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discussed several of his public health initiatives with hosts Howard Forman and Harlan Krumholz, including his advisories on parental stress, youth mental health, and social media. Citing a finding that 48% of parents report feeling significantly stressed most days, he connected parental strain to the broader environment children are raised in, and recommended delaying children's social media access until after middle school and establishing tech-free zones for sleep and family time. He also discussed how algorithm-driven platforms can amplify polarization, and described grassroots parent movements such as Wait Until 8th as examples of collective, rather than purely individual, responses to reshaping children's relationship with technology. TechKids Foundation cites this conversation as Murthy connecting his youth-mental-health advisory to concrete, parent-organized responses.

48% of parents report high stress most days

Murthy cited a finding that 48% of parents report feeling overwhelmingly stressed most days, connecting parental strain to the environment in which children navigate technology and social pressures.

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CITATION

"Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: Crises and Common Ground." Health & Veritas podcast, episode 144, Yale School of Management, October 3, 2024.

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