What is the Defining Public Health Issue of our Time?
I recently took an informal poll of parents of young children to ask what the greatest parenting challenge is that they face in trying to keep their children emotionally healthy. The resounding answer was teaching their children how to navigate their relationship with social media.
The surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, recently issued a health advisory warning about the danger of social media on the mental health of teenagers and young adults. He has called this the “defining public health issue of our times.” Most surgeon general warnings are about smoking and other physical health hazards, so this departure made us pay attention.
There is indeed a youth mental health crisis with large numbers of children, teenagers and young adults facing depression and anxiety. The causes of this crisis are many, and the pandemic has certainly contributed to this. There is overwhelming evidence that time spent on social media is a large contributor to this. Social media provides filtered utopian yardsticks that young people use to measure the quality of their bodies, their social lives and their happiness. We all fall short of what is portrayed, but when we have not developed reality checks, the divide between our own lives and the lives portrayed can become very real.
Social media can also expose children to explicit content, disinformation, hateful thinking and bullying. This is especially worrisome when we know that 95 % of teens have a smartphone and 45 % of those state that they are “constantly” on the internet.
There are three steps that Dr. Murthy suggests to help our children and teenagers manage this terrain.
- Have conversations with them about the dangers of social media. Help them become more savvy by discussing what to watch for and by making them aware that they can reach out to you if they feel they are being harassed.
- Establish tech-free zones. Focus primarily on time before sleep because sleep is so important to growing minds. Family time and meal times are also times to put away phones.
- Partner with other parents. If your children know that other parents have similar boundaries it makes those boundaries more palatable.
It is not going to be an easy battle but nothing worthwhile ever is. The mental health of our kids is worth it!
Dr. Bhooma Bhayana is a family physician in London and the mother of two young men and proud grandmother of three! She continues to find wonder and enjoyment in family practice despite more than 30 years on the job!
