US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Monday (local time) called for adding a warning label on social media apps to remind people of the harm these platforms cause to young people, especially teenagers.

In an article in the New York Times, Murthy wrote that warning labels alone would not make social media safer for young people, but it could raise awareness and change behavior, as tobacco studies show. The US Congress would need to pass a law requiring such warning labels.

Youth advocates and lawmakers have long accused social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat of having harmful effects on children, including shortening attention spans, promoting negative body images and making them vulnerable to online bullies and predators.

“It is time to require social media platforms to carry a warning label from the Surgeon General stating that social media causes serious harm to the mental health of teens,” Murthy wrote Monday.

TikTok, Snap and Meta Platforms, which own Facebook and Instagram, did not respond to requests for comment.

The CEOs of these three companies, along with social media platform X and messaging app Discord, were questioned by US senators during a hearing about online child safety in January, in which Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused leaders of having “blood-stained hands” for failing to protect young users from sexual predators.

Some US states are working on passing laws to protect children from the harmful effects of social media, such as anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses.

New York state lawmakers this month passed a law that would prevent social media platforms from displaying “addictive” algorithmic content to users under the age of 18 without parental consent.

In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans children under the age of 14 from social media platforms and requires 14-15 year olds to have parental consent.