US Surgeon General says 13 is too young to use social media.

US Surgeon General Vivek Merthy says he thinks 13 is “too early” for social media, pointing out a “disservice” to children.

In an interview with CNN Sunday, Murthy said that at this age, kids are still “developing their personalities.”

“Personally, based on the data that I have seen, I think that 13 years old is too early, and I think this is the time in early adolescence, when children are still developing their personality, their sense of self,” Murthy said. CNN.

Many social media giants, including Meta and Twitter, currently allow 13 year olds to join their platforms. Users under the age of 13 will violate the rules.

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“This is a time when it’s really important for us to reflect on what’s going on with how they think about their self-worth and their relationships, and the distorted and often distorted social media environment often does a disservice to many of these kids.” Murthy continued.

The brain changes from social networks

The amount of teens on social media has raised concerns among medical professionals, and many agree that children’s frequent use of social media can lead to big changes in their brains.

“They don’t have a fully developed frontal lobe, and as a result, they really think with their brain’s emotional centers,” an expert at Good Day DC said on Monday, adding: “They may not be able to analyze what’s real and what’s right to figure out when there might be something dangerous or inappropriate that they shouldn’t be looking at, and that’s quite problematic because they get caught up in the emotions of the moment without necessarily being able to think about the costs and benefits.”

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, used brain imaging (fMRI) to monitor 169 sixth and seventh grade public high school students in North Carolina. The researchers wanted to know if routine visits to the three social networks — Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat — changed the way children’s brains developed.

After studying undergraduate students for three years, the results show that frequent use of social media in early adolescence “may tune the brain’s sensitivity to potential social rewards and punishments… which may have implications for psychological adjustment.”

“Motivated by the expectation of this social feedback, the constant, habitual checking of adolescents on social media may influence neurodevelopment by significantly altering how the adolescent brain responds to the environment,” the researchers say.

The Surgeon General also noted that age limits on social media are currently “inconsistently enforced” – another of his concerns.

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“We need transparency from social media companies about the impact their platforms have on children and which children are negatively impacted,” he added.

Deputies get involved

Last year, two US lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to address the negative impact of social media.

The goal of the NUDGE Social Media Act, introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), was to define ways to interfere with someone’s social media habits, especially when they are harmful or addictive. NUDGE is short for Pushing Users to Create Good Social Media Experiences.

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The legislation follows former Meta employee Frances Haugen’s testimony before Congress in 2021 that the social media giant’s platforms are harming children.

“I believe Facebook products are harming children, fueling division, and weakening our democracy,” Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, told the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. “The management of the company knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but will not make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits ahead of people.”

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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