HJAR Sep/Oct 2024

38 SEP / OCT 2024 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS POLICY COLUMN POLICY SOCIALMEDIAuse has become a hot topic in discussions about mental health, particu- larly the mental health of young people. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, issued an advisory stating that although more research on the topic is needed, “the current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the men- tal health and well-being of children and adolescents.” 1 Murthy went a step further last June, pen- ning a guest essay for The New York Times in which he called for a requirement that social media platforms carry warning labels, similar to the warning labels required on tobacco products, stating that “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.” 2 Social media platforms have been tar- geted by legislation in Washington and a growing number of states, including Ar- kansas. InApril 2023, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law the Social Media SafetyAct (Act 689 of the Regular Session), which would have required social media platforms to verify the age of any new user and, if a user is under 18, obtain explicit pa- rental consent to open an account. Before the law could take effect, a federal judge granted a request from the tech industry trade group NetChoice — whose members include TikTok, X, and Facebook’s parent company, Meta — for a preliminary injunc- tion temporarily blocking the law. Arkansas is also among dozens of states that have filed lawsuits against social media companies. In March 2023, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin filed lawsuits against Meta, TikTok, and TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, accusing them of misleading users about the platforms’ safety and addictiveness. Undoubtedly, social media can provide benefits for some young people, including opportunities for education, communica- tion, self-expression, and positive connec- tions with others outside their local com- munities who share common interests or Parental Discretion Advised: SocialMedia andYouthMentalHealth