When the top doctor in the United States recently warned about the “profound risk” for kids posed by social media, he cited some Canadian research among the accumulation of scientific, academic and anecdotal evidence showing the dangers from our social media ecosystem.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy has often warned that social media use poses a real harm for kids; he has spoken passionately about a mental health crisis among young people and that social media platforms are “an important contributor” to what he and others see as an emergency situation.

Now, he’s asking lawmakers in Congress to require a warning label on social media like the label slapped on a pack of cigarettes.

“The advisory I issued a year ago about social media and young people’s mental health included specific recommendations for policymakers, platforms and the public to make social media safer for kids,” he wrote recently in The New York Times. “It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

It’s a long time coming, as Canadian researchers and industry analysts have long wondered if social media networks are, in fact, our friends.

Now, a new study from the respected Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario also examines the impact of social media on young people’s mental health, and the research has been cited by Dr. Murthy in support of his proposal.

The Canadian study confirms that cutting one’s social media use in half can have a powerfully positive impact on mental health and well-being for youth with emotional distress.

The study, led by Dr. Gary Goldfield, Senior Scientist at the CHEO Research Institute, and Dr. Chris Davis, a psychology professor at Carleton University, included unique experimental investigations into the amount of time we spend on social media. They wondered whether, by objectively reducing someone’s social media use on smartphones down to one hour a day (for a period of three weeks) weeks, it would lead to a reduction in depression, anxiety, and fear of missing out (FoMO). They worked with a group of young people with emotional distress to find out.

Their first-of-its-kind experimental study was described in the journal Psychology of Popular Media, and presented with evidence that shows the impact of time spent using social media on youth mental health.

The Goldfield/Davis team compared two groups of young people, 17- to 25-year-old Canadian youth experiencing elevated symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. One group reduced their social media use to one hour per day for three weeks, while the other group had no limitations on their social media use.

The reduced time group had greater psychological benefits than the normal time social media group.

Youth with high levels of emotional distress showed a reduction in the symptoms of depression (20 per cent), anxiety (26 per cent), and FoMO (20 per cent). They also showed good increases in sleep (an extra 45 minutes a day) compared to the group who used social media as usual.

The report shows less is more, where social media is concerned.

“There is a lot of discussion about the negative impacts of social media on the mental health of young people, but very few studies have objectively shown a causal link between putting the phone away and improved mental well-being,” said Dr. Goldfield, who’s also professor of Pediatrics, Psychology and Population Health, at the University of Ottawa. “Our study clearly demonstrates that when youth with emotional distress put their phones down for longer periods of time, they report improved mental well-being and better sleep. This is especially important amidst the all-time high rates of mental health challenges in youth, and as they head into the summer months with less structure and more free time.”

The links between social media and mental health are increasingly clear, but the strategies that best support children and youth who are increasingly addicted to their devices require more well-controlled experimental research, Dr. Goldfield says, making that the focus of his ongoing work.

Such strategies should surely include more than just labels (as the surgeon general himself noted).

It was 1965 when warning labels were voted into U.S. law by the Congress of the day. Smoking cigarettes, the packages now read, “may be hazardous to your health.”

Social media is sometimes said to be as addictive as cigarettes: Canadian researcher Jay Olson, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Toronto, says many of us would be considered clinically addicted to our phones. He’s published his findings on smartphone addiction patterns among adults here in Canada and other countries, showing that for some demographic groups, the addiction rate is higher than 50 per cent! In the light of such findings, that makes the call for mere labels seem a rather meek response.

But tobacco studies have shown that the cigarette warning labels did increase people’s awareness about the harms of smoking. Some behaviours did change. But the labelling was coupled with a huge public health awareness campaign and other significant efforts to get people to reduce or quit smoking, which will certainly be needed to have any significant impact on social media use these days.

Murthy did not show any examples of social media warning labels, nor did he describe exactly where such labels would be placed. Perhaps, taking another cue from Canada, there should be a warning label on every single social media post, like the warnings now found on every single cigarette, and not just the package!

Murthy did suggest parents take an active role: they should create phone-free zones around mealtimes, bedtime, and family or social gatherings. It’s one step in their efforts to fight the negative impacts of social media use while protecting their child’s sleep and in-person social connection time.

He also wants schools to become phone-free environments, and again Canada may be an influence. Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and more are among the jurisdictions here looking at reducing cellphone, smartphone and social media use in schools, an idea seemingly growing in popularity across the country.

Another approach seeks not solely to ban or limit social media use, but also to inform youth about the risks and dangers inherent in that use. Canadian organizations like MediaSmarts (and MediaWise in the U.S.) help young people to do their own fact-checking, teaching and empowering them to be able to assess, verify, or dismiss information encountered on social media platforms.

No matter the approach or suggested remedy, be it a label, a ban, a law or lots more education and awareness, we must acknowledge the mental health crisis felt by young people today, especially those who are social media users.

Be it on labels, across multimedia campaigns, through research or voiced by the users themselves, we all should be reminded regularly that social media can harm the mental health of children, teens, and adults alike.

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