(LifeSiteNews) — New York City’s health commissioner officially recommended that children do not receive phones and other devices that access social media before age 14 in order to safeguard against mental health difficulties.
Ashwin Vasan, the city’s top health official, and city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief Medical Officer Michelle Morse penned a September 5 letter to doctors and health professionals advising that pediatricians should discuss social media with parents and their children during regular check-ups.
“Adolescents using social media have a greater risk of experiencing poor mental health, including symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the health officials wrote.
“Recommend parents and caregivers delay giving children a smartphone, or similar device that can access social media, until age 14, and then reassess based on current evidence of harms and the child’s strengths and needs,” Ashwin and Morse advised.
The health officials suggested that pediatricians discuss the dangers of smartphone and social media overuse with parents and their children as part of a “family media plan” to cut back on or ban such tech usage.
They additionally recommended that when parents give their children a phone for safety reasons as they begin to travel independently in NYC that they use a phone that cannot “access social media.”
In the letter, the city’s top doctors “cited statistics indicating that local youths are more depressed than a decade ago and suggesting social media addiction could be a culprit,” the New York Post reported.
In 2021, a whopping 38 percent of NYC high schoolers felt so sad the year before that they “stopped engaging in their usual activities,” in contrast with a still-high 27 percent in 2011, according to a local survey. It is not clear whether the survey results mention the impact of COVID-era lockdowns.
Suicidal ideation also rose massively during the time period from 2011 to 2021 — by more than 34 percent – according to the survey.
Reports indicate that children who use social media have higher rates of anxiety (16 percent) than those who do not (12 percent). This disparity is much greater for teens: 27 percent of those who use social media experience anxiety and 14 percent experience depression, whereas teens who do not use social media report anxiety and depression at rates of 9 percent and 4 percent, respectively.