The chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) is calling for social media to be classed as a public health risk similar to cigarettes and alcohol. 

IMO Chair Dr Matthew Sadlier said every indicator of mental health and psychological wellbeing among teenagers and young adults has become more negative since 2012, linked to social media use becoming more common. 

“Excessive use of social media by the youth is causing a mental health crisis in our youth now,” he told The Anton Savage Show.

“We have to try to find what are some of the causes of this and try to combat it and undoubtedly one of the causes this is excessive use of social media.” 

He noted that the United States Surgeon General has already argued that online platforms “may have contributed to more than 300,000 cases of depression among US college student population”. 

“If that was happening to any other physical health problem, if that was 300,000 cases of diabetes or 200,000 cases of asthma, we would be acting on it,” Dr Sadlier said. 

“We need to take mental health as seriously as physical health and start to act upon these numbers.” 

Social media and behavioural addictions

The IMO Chair said social media and “behavioural addictions tickle the same neural pathways as substance addictions”. 

“Repeated use of this pathway means that that pathway grows up and people then start to develop the dependency,” he said. 

“We have known this for a significant period of time around other digitals, specifically I would be talking about video games. 

“We know that you know people who excessively social media do develop the same symptoms.” 

Public health warnings

Treating the digital world as a public health issue similar to smoking or alcohol, according to Dr Sadlier, would lower the risk of mental problems associated with it. 

“[The US General Surgeon] issued a general advisory in regards to social media use and youth mental health,” he said. 

“These are the same advisory that in the 1960s they issued on cigarette smoking and in the 1980s they issued on road safety.” 

The US Surgeon General called on policymakers to strengthen safety standards and limit access in ways that make social media safer for children of all ages, better protect children’s privacy, support digital and media literacy, and fund additional research.