Montpelier, Vermont, September 24, 2024: Over 100 independent medical professionals, parents, teachers, content experts, academic researchers, legislators, and attorneys from across the country signed a letter to Congressional leadership asking for action on the US Surgeon General’s call for warning labels on social media products. The letter can be found at this link.
Signers include author and social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt; child psychiatrist and author, Dr. Victoria Dunkley; Fairplayforkids.org founder Dr. Susan Linn, author and child and adolescent psychologist Dr. Richard Freed, attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, and state legislators from Vermont and Kansas. Signers also included members of the National Screen Time Action Network at Fairplay for Kids.
Pastor Robin Junker, a leader of Vermont Phone Free Schools, reiterated Dr. Murthy’s call, saying, “along with other essential legislative tools to protect children from online harms, the public needs to see warning labels stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”
Vermont doctor Rima Carlson explains, “in my 21 years in family medicine, I have not seen this level of anxiety and depression in adolescent patients. It corresponds with the increasing hours teens spend on social media platforms. Families need to be warned of the potential adverse effect.”
The group’s effort follows the recent letter signed by 42 attorneys general seeking the same congressional action. In their letter, Vermont Phone-Free Schools re-frames a common misconception that the science surrounding the link between youth mental health and social media is conflicted. The group argues that the conflict lies between industry profits and what is healthy for children.
“We are well beyond the point at which Congress needed to act to protect our kids from the known harms of social media. Passing legislation to require warning labels on these unsafe products is one of many steps that need to be taken now to show that regulators value people over profits,” says Representative Angela Arsenault (Vermont House, Chittenden-2).
Mary Rodee of Potsdam, NY lost her son, Riley, to suicide at age 15. Riley was a victim of sexploitation and blackmail by an anonymous internet user (www.parentssos.org/stories/#rileyb). Mary asks, “if not now, then when will the warning labels come out? If not the surgeon general, then who? The statistics are clear, kids are being harmed. Just because it’s not (always) death doesn’t mean that they aren’t impacted for life by the damage done and that’s what surgeon general’s warnings are for, right?”
“When discussing social media with high school students, they admit they can’t stop scrolling through social media apps. They admit that quickly checking a message causes them to lose multiple hours doom scrolling. How does a teacher teach tired children who have been up to all hours of the night scrolling through social media? They are unfocused, exhausted, and training themselves to have 30 second attention spans” says Randal Freiman, Massena High School Science Teacher & Massena Federation of Teachers Union President.
This letter to Congress was sent on the same day that Senator Britt (Alabama) and Senator Fetterman (Pennsylvania) introduced bi-legislation www.britt.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/RIL24816.pdf called, “Stop The Scroll Act” to implement a mental health warning label on social media platforms.
Vermont Phone-Free Schools is a network of Vermont parents, school board members, medical professionals, educators, school leadership, and other concerned citizens working to promote safe practices and policies regarding kids’ use of online and digital products.
For those who want to continue to add their names to the letter here is where you can sign.
