Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, believes that 13-year-olds are too young for social media.
Despite popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram permitting 13-year-olds to join, Murthy believes it “does a disservice” to teens at that age.
In a recent interview with CNN, he said, “I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early.”
“It’s a time where it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children,” Murthy added.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as well as TikTok and Snapchat, require users to be at least 13 years old.
YouTube’s parent company, Google, doesn’t allow children under 13 to create their own account, but they can set up a “supervised account” with a parent’s control over the content settings.
Murthy called for parents to take a stance and not allow their young teens on social media until they reach a more suitable age.
He suggests, “If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early.”
