Vivek Murthy
Clinicians & Public Health · Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (former)
Former U.S. Surgeon General who issued the 2023 advisory warning on social media and youth mental health.
Vivek Murthy served as U.S. Surgeon General and in 2023 issued a formal advisory stating that social media use is associated with risks to youth mental health — one of the highest-profile federal statements on the issue to date. In 2024 he went further, calling for tobacco-style warning labels on social media platforms so parents and teens would see those risks flagged directly on the products. As the nation's top public-health official, his advisories carried unusual institutional weight and helped move concerns about kids and social media onto the agendas of Congress, schools, and parents nationwide.
WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (10)
VIDEOS
Murthy Says Social Media Hurting Kids, Time for Government, Tech Firms to Help
Speaking at the October 2023 launch of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Center for Digital Thriving, in a conversation hosted by the Askwith Education Forum, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy described social media's effect on adolescent well-being as 'a pivotal issue in public health' and said 'we have fallen short when it comes to taking care of kids with regard to social media and safeguarding them against harms.' He argued responsibility should not fall on parents alone, drawing a comparison to auto-safety regulation, and called for enforceable design standards alongside individual measures such as tech-free family time, digital literacy education, and encouraging teens to self-regulate use and block harmful content. TechKids Foundation cites this appearance as a direct record of Murthy connecting his federal advisory to an academic initiative aimed at translating the concern into practical school and family guidance.
Drew Barrymore Speaks to U.S. Surgeon General about Child Safety on Social Media
In this October 2024 television appearance, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discussed social media's association with youth mental health risk with host Drew Barrymore, reiterating his federal advisory's finding that adolescents spending three or more hours a day on social media face roughly double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms. He described social media platforms as products 'designed by the best product engineers in the world with cutting-edge neuroscience' to maximize engagement, arguing this makes them especially risky for still-developing minds, and again compared the case for enforceable safety standards to vehicle safety regulation rather than placing the full burden on individual parents. Barrymore discussed her own household's device-limiting practices during the conversation. TechKids Foundation includes this segment as a mainstream daytime-television record of Murthy translating his federal advisory into parent-facing guidance and a repeated call for industry accountability.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: Crises and Common Ground
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.
TESTIMONY
Statement Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate — Protecting Youth Mental Health: Part I, An Advisory and Call to Action
In this February 2022 statement to the Senate Finance Committee, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy testified that U.S. youth mental health had reached crisis levels before the COVID-19 pandemic and worsened further during it. He cited a rise in persistent sadness and hopelessness reported by high school students through the 2010s and a 28% increase in youth psychiatric emergency-department visits for depression, anxiety, and behavioral challenges between 2011 and 2015. Among several named drivers — pervasive mental-health stigma, unresolved societal stressors, and pandemic disruption — Murthy identified 'the recent ubiquity of technology platforms, especially social media platforms,' as having exacerbated feelings of isolation for some youth, reducing in-person activity time and reinforcing bullying and exclusion, while also acknowledging technology's benefits. He called for expanded mental health workforce capacity, insurance parity enforcement, and stronger prevention infrastructure. TechKids Foundation cites this as an early instance of the Surgeon General naming social media as one contributor to the youth mental health crisis.
Statement Before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate
In this written statement to the Senate HELP Committee, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy testified that up to 95% of youth ages 13–17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use it almost constantly, and that roughly 40% of children ages 8–12 use social media despite platforms' own age-13 minimums. He described insufficient evidence to call social media 'sufficiently safe' for children and pointed to research associating heavier use with depression and anxiety symptoms, alongside his separately released advisory on loneliness, which found childhood social isolation associated with elevated depression and anxiety risk lasting up to nine years. Murthy also described his own experience of childhood bullying and stigma to argue that shame prevents young people from seeking mental health support. TechKids Foundation cites this testimony as Murthy's direct account, under oath before Congress, of the evidence behind his social media and loneliness advisories.
STUDIES
Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory
In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a federal advisory reviewing the evidence on social media and youth mental health. It describes potential benefits — peer support and identity affirmation, especially for marginalized youth — alongside a growing body of research associating heavier social media use with elevated risk of depression, anxiety, poor sleep, body dissatisfaction, and cyberbullying-related distress, particularly among adolescent girls. The advisory cites a longitudinal study finding that more than three hours of daily use was linked to double the risk of poor mental health outcomes, and notes platform features such as autoplay and infinite scroll that may encourage excessive, habit-driven use. Rather than declaring social media unsafe, it calls the evidence base incomplete and recommends specific actions for policymakers, technology companies, parents, and researchers. TechKids Foundation cites this as the highest-profile U.S. federal statement associating adolescent social media use with mental health risk.
Surgeon General: Why I'm Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms
In this June 2024 New York Times opinion piece, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy argued that Congress should require a surgeon general's warning label on social media platforms, modeled on tobacco packaging warnings, saying the labels would remind parents and adolescents that social media 'has not been proved safe.' The essay extends his 2023 federal advisory into a specific legislative request, pairing the label proposal with calls for stronger data-privacy protections for minors, restrictions on design features he associates with excessive use, and independent researcher access to platform data. Murthy frames the request as filling a gap left by the absence of comprehensive federal legislation, drawing a comparison to earlier public health interventions on tobacco and auto safety. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as Murthy's most concrete single policy proposal to date and a direct escalation of his advisory's underlying concerns.
The U.S. Surgeon General Fears Social Media Is Harming the 'Well-Being of Our Children'
In this May 2023 interview published days after his federal advisory, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told TIME's Alice Park that 'there isn't enough data to say that social media platforms are safe for kids, and there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harms.' He described hearing directly from students that social media had worsened their self-image and friendships and made it hard for them to disengage, and argued technology companies should be required to meet independent safety standards for products used by children — similar to standards in other industries — rather than setting their own internal guidelines. He noted that roughly 40% of children ages 8–12 use social media despite a common industry minimum age of 13. TechKids Foundation cites this interview as a direct, first-person account of the reasoning behind Murthy's advisory.
Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: 'Staying Human' Requires Connection and Time Away from Tech
This May 2026 WBUR profile covers 'Staying Human,' a newsletter and forthcoming podcast launched by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy as part of a broader project addressing loneliness. The piece reports that Murthy warns digital platforms are 'replacing people wholesale' for some users, and describes AI companion chatbots as a newer concern he associates with the risk of substituting for authentic relationships, alongside social media comparison and excessive screen time more broadly. He recommends remedies including tech-free zones, prioritizing in-person relationships, and community service, arguing that genuine human connection carries health benefits — including lower association with anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular risk — that digital substitutes do not replicate. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as Murthy's most recent public extension of his social media and loneliness advocacy into the newer concern of AI companion technology.