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The U.S. Surgeon General issued a 25-page advisory, arguing that social media, lacking sufficient safeguards, harms our nation’s youth. Even before that 2023 report, state and local policymakers were holding hearings and introducing legislation that villainizes and seeks to restrict youth access to social media. Members of Congress have thundered away at TikTok’s CEO and Montana’s state lawmakers recently banned the platform.
Legislation is pending in several states similar to the Social Media Relations Act that takes effect in Utah next March.
What I know as a youth policy advocate and community psychologist, however, is that using policy to crack down on teens’ social media usage is a distraction from what many young people — particularly those from marginalized communities — say are the real threats to youth mental health. Across many urban and rural settings and a diversity of racial and gender identities, young people consistently and repeatedly identify three major sources of their mental distress: racism and other forms of discrimination, violence in their communities and financial strain — not social media.
In my own recent analysis of 14 youth-led research reports by such organizations as Mental Health America, The California Children’s Partnership/National Black Women’s Justice Initiative and The Aspen Forum for Community Solutions, the same top three issues surfaced — with youth consistently elevating social media as a support, not a harm.
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