U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy recently compared social media to cigarettes. 

Murthy characterized the endless algorithm-driven scroll as something like a controlled substance, a corrosive drug that can alter lives forever— even end them. And just like nicotine-laden products, the surgeon general proposed that warning labels might lend gravity to the risk, ultimately reducing use. 

It’s not hard to see why our nation’s highest health office would be issuing grave warnings. Mental health struggles have been skyrocketing among teens, leading to self-harm, substance abuse, and even suicide. Cyberbullying and sextortion get more sophisticated every day. And while the data is still new enough that we can’t always conclusively tell where correlation proves causation, we know that social media profoundly impacts how we connect with the world. 

Social media platforms know this too. Internal documentation that has been leaked consistently shows that platforms know that they’re stoking polarization, negative body image and self-perception, and even human trafficking. 

As Dr. Murthy puts it, “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor.”

Looking at the seemingly ruinous impact of these platforms, you might be left asking: is social media worth saving?

Our team here at Influenced is about creating a movement of people who celebrate the value of creating a safer online, not eradicating online use, altogether. This is a difficult tension to stand in as we face such overwhelming dangers. 

But in reality, the truest, healthiest human experiences always exist in a space of nuanced paradox. 

I am a Millennial, part of the generation that is starting to ask serious questions about how to guide their kids into the digital world. I am not a parent myself. But I was once a teenager, a kid who desperately needed what the internet could offer. 

I came of age in the MySpace era (and I had the side-swept bangs and glitter profile gifs to prove it). I was curious, socially isolated, and cripplingly depressed. 

Two different profile pictures I had on MySpace around 2008.

In those days, in addition to the burgeoning world of MySpace, my peers used message boards and chat rooms to connect. I found my way to a forum for teenage writers. It was the very first time I had access to other kids like me. I found solidarity, solace, and understanding. The relationships I formed there would ultimately be the people who talked me out of suicide— and I’ve now been married to one of them for over a decade. 

But I also experienced some intense cyberbullying in other online spaces in the Wild West days before platforms offered tools for reporting. As a vulnerable teenage girl, I endured an online hate group created by college-aged men, specifically targeting myself and my friends. This is the double-edged sword of social media: connection is more available than ever before. So is abuse. A formalized warning label might underscore the severity of that harm.

Our digital dichotomy has only been intensified by the current ubiquity of social media. Despite the dangers, humans are tenacious and gloriously resilient. The most marginalized groups have worked the hardest to claim social media for good.

For many survivors of abuse and exploitation, the only avenue to access resources to understand that they’re being harmed comes from social media. LGBTQ+ youth living in isolated rural communities may only be able to access education and acceptance online. For the misfits who are relentlessly bullied at school for the music and movies they love, vibrant subcultures exist under the shelter of niched hashtags. Activism for most social change often begins digitally, with research rabbit trails that ignite a passion for action. 

There’s an adage in scientific communities: “the dose determines the poison.” I would posit the same for social media. 

Did you know that you can drown from the inside out by drinking too much water? And yet, hydrating adequately is an aspiration many of us chase our whole lives (see #WaterTok for Exhibit A). 

An appropriate amount of social media consumption can fill our days with vitality. Too much promises to drown us.

One indicator of appropriately balanced social media use can come from examining whether your digital habits are adding to your face-to-face relationships — or disconnecting you from them. Is social media being used to avoid relational intimacy or to lean deeper into it?

Remember my message board days? I was afraid of letting other people truly know me as a teenager. I was in the thick of asking that age-old question: am I fully known and fully loved? 

I could have hidden behind that uncertainty forever. Instead, I stepped out from behind the screen and transformed my online friends into offline friends. We had meet-ups and hangouts and retreats. It was terrifying. It was rewarding in a way that has gifted me dozens of lifelong friendships. Social media became the glue that held us together between face-to-face time. 

Those relationships that exist both online and offline became some of my greatest protective factors against the toxicity that still scrolls like sludge across my screen. I know that I am not alone in this. In the process of working with The Exodus Road to fight human trafficking, I have seen social media serve as a flashpoint for rallying against exploitation. I cannot imagine having the same momentum without platforms that connect passionate hearts across the world, creating meaningful change.

It can be difficult to know where to start in assessing your use of these platforms and figuring out if you are using them to catapult yourself into connection instead of away from it. I believe that the process starts with intentionality. The only way that you can move into healthier social media use is by first acknowledging that you want to do so. 

This is where the conversations that we are sparking with Influenced could be vital and instrumental. The course cultivates a moment for both parents and teenagers to consider honestly how they are using social media now and how they would like to be using it in the future. We are never going to be able to offer a one-size-fits-all solution to a healthy presence online. But hopefully, we can stand in solidarity as you ask questions about what that might look like for you.

I empathize with Dr. Murthy’s call for caution to see social media as a legitimate public health concern. It absolutely is. But ultimately, social media differs from cigarettes in one essential way: cigarettes are unlikely to add value to your life. Social media, however, has astronomical potential for good alongside the clear potential for danger.

Maybe instead of a warning label prompting abstinence, social media needs a warning sign. For Gen X and Millennials, the last generations who experienced technology being introduced partway through our lives, we can take responsibility for putting up road signs. We can signal sudden curvy roads ahead because we’ve driven this route before. We can indicate where there might be flash floods. We can even mark key exit ramps to rest stops. In this way, social media can be used to safely take us (and the next generation) where we want to go.

I have made my fair share of mistakes in trying to find balance as I have grown from my MySpace and messageboard days into my role as a content manager who consistently produces work that will digitally reach thousands of people I will never meet. I have learned that if I am granted the ability to pick my battles, this is a battle I am choosing: the battle to preserve what is good about social media while collectively protecting against what is bad. I hope you’ll join me.

To continue being part of the conversation about saving social media, follow Influenced on Instagram and TikTok.