Social media is a public health hazard fueling a mental health crisis- New York City mayor

Social media has been described as a mental health hazard by the Mayor of New York City in the US. This was revealed by the Mayor,  Eric Adams during his annual State of the City address. The Mayor said social media is a threat to public health and his office will be issuing an advisory and reclassifying it as an “environmental toxin” over its impact on young New Yorkers.

Citing a need to protect students from harm online, Mayor Adams condemned big tech companies like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook for filling their platforms with addictive and dangerous features, fueling a mental health crisis.

“We can not stand by and let Big Tech monetize our children’s privacy and jeopardize their mental health,” the mayor said.

Speaking on how New York City plans to hold the big social media companies to account, the mayor promised that more details on the advisory’s implications would come at a future date.

The city’s advisory which was subsequently released by the city’s health and mental hygiene commissioner,  Dr. Ashwin Vasan contained data revealing that the mental health of New Yorkers in their teens and twenties has been declining for over a decade. This rise is in conjunction with a rise in social media use, with data from 2021 showing that 77 per cent of New York City high schoolers spent three or more hours every weekday parked in front of screens. 

“We are the first major American city to take this step and call out the danger of social media like this,” he said. “Just as the surgeon general did with tobacco and guns, we’re treating social media like other public health hazards, and it must stop,” the Mayor concluded.

Social media use and poor mental health have repeatedly been correlated by researchers. But studies have struggled to prove that the two have a causal relationship, particularly as social media “doesn’t affect all teens the same way,” according to the Mayo Clinic. Any number of factors—including age, time spent online, and personal life circumstances—also threaten to skew the data.

Reactions trail the classification of social media

Some users wondered why the Mayor was posting the information about social media been hazardous on social media. https://x.com/johannes356/status/1750230268294668628?s=46

Another user tweeted: I have to say, I fully agree. But stopping it will be next to impossible. Too much 💰 being spread around.

But the teens themselves and their advocates appear to be fighting back. One tweep, Salmon said:  

Ah yes, surely it can’t be the looming potential of a world war, the expectations of the older generations on us to fix the problems they caused, a worsening climate that’ll kill the future for our children, and the housing and job crisis keeping the people homeless!

George came after the purpose of the advisory indicating it was useless with the following words: Wow an advisory that will make them get in line.

Ann, a social media user advocated for parents to focus on raising their kids rather than worrying about the dangers of social media:

“Perhaps start cleaning up your own house first and talk to your son about the influence “drill music  videos” have on the young.”

This stance was supported by Amy Orben, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, told The Atlantic that:

“I think the key question is, in 20 years, will we look back at this conversation and be like, We were worried about technology in excess when we should have been worried about raising our kids? It will probably be somewhere halfway between the two.”

See also: British-Nigerian man pleads guilty to $6m bank hacking crimes in New York spanning 7 years