Teen Mental Health and Social Media: Surgeon General Advisory 2026

What Does the Surgeon General's Advisory Say?

In May 2023, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a landmark Surgeon General's Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, stating that "there are ample indicators that social media can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents." The advisory reviewed the existing scientific literature and concluded that while social media can provide benefits — including community building, self-expression, and access to health information — the current design of these platforms poses significant risks to developing brains, particularly during the critical period of adolescence (ages 10-19).

The advisory highlighted several pathways through which social media may harm youth mental health: exposure to harmful content (including content promoting self-harm, eating disorders, and suicide), cyberbullying, social comparison and body dissatisfaction, displacement of sleep and physical activity, and the addictive design features (infinite scrolling, push notifications, variable reward mechanisms) that exploit developing prefrontal cortex and dopamine systems. The advisory noted that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.

In June 2024, Surgeon General Murthy escalated his warning, calling for Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms — similar to tobacco warning labels — stating that "the mental health crisis among young people is an emergency." He noted that the burden of managing social media's risks currently falls almost entirely on parents and children, and called for a "safety first" approach from technology companies, including age-appropriate health and safety standards, default privacy protections for minors, and limitations on features designed to maximize engagement at the expense of well-being.

What Does the CDC Data Show About Teen Mental Health?

The CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which has tracked health behaviors among US high school students biennially since 1991, documented dramatic deterioration in adolescent mental health in its 2021 report. Among female students, 57% reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness (lasting two or more weeks and interfering with regular activities), up from 36% in 2011 — a 60% increase over one decade. Among male students, 29% reported persistent sadness, up from 21% in 2011. One in three teen girls (30%) seriously considered attempting suicide, and 13% attempted suicide in 2021.

LGBTQ+ youth face particularly severe mental health challenges. The YRBS found that 69% of LGBTQ+ students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 45% seriously considered suicide in the preceding year. Among transgender and questioning students, the numbers were even more alarming. The Trevor Project's 2023 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health reported that 41% of LGBTQ young people (ages 13-24) seriously considered suicide in the past year, though rates were lower among those who reported having at least one accepting adult in their life.

While the temporal association between rising social media use and declining teen mental health is striking, researchers caution that correlation does not prove causation. Multiple factors likely contribute to the youth mental health crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic (which severely disrupted adolescent social development, education, and routine), economic insecurity, climate anxiety, gun violence, and reduced access to mental health services. A 2024 systematic review in the BMJ found that the association between social media use and mental health is modest and bidirectional — meaning that young people with pre-existing mental health difficulties may also be drawn to spend more time on social media. Nevertheless, the weight of evidence supports that for many adolescents, excessive social media use exacerbates mental health challenges.

What Interventions Can Help Protect Teen Mental Health?

School-based mental health programs represent one of the most scalable and evidence-based approaches to supporting adolescent well-being. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based universal prevention programs, such as FRIENDS and Penn Resiliency Program, have demonstrated modest but significant reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms in meta-analyses. The CDC recommends that schools implement comprehensive mental health strategies including social-emotional learning curricula, training for educators to recognize warning signs, peer support programs, and connections to community mental health services. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, signed into law in 2022, allocated $1 billion for school-based mental health services, though experts argue that far more investment is needed.

At the family level, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends creating a Family Media Use Plan that includes consistent limits on screen time, tech-free zones (particularly bedrooms) and times (especially the hour before sleep), co-viewing and discussion of online content, and modeling healthy technology use. Research published in JAMA Pediatrics found that adolescents who kept smartphones out of the bedroom at night had 20-30 minutes more sleep, better sleep quality, and improved daytime functioning. Parents should be aware that parental monitoring software and screen time restrictions are most effective when implemented as part of an open, trust-based dialogue rather than as surveillance.

At the policy level, several states have enacted legislation aimed at protecting minors online. California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (2022), modeled after the UK's Children's Code, requires online platforms to default to high-privacy settings for users under 18 and prohibits the use of design features that are known to be harmful to children. Utah, Arkansas, and other states have passed laws requiring parental consent for minors to create social media accounts, though enforcement and constitutional challenges remain unresolved. At the federal level, bipartisan bills including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) have advanced in Congress, proposing a duty of care for platforms to prevent foreseeable harm to minors.