How young is too young where children are concerned? For the Biden administration, the answer to that question is very political.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made some telling comments this week about children using social media. "I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early … It’s a time when it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children."
I largely agree. We have an avalanche of research that shows teenagers specifically make terrible decisions because of the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex in their brains. Pummel them with all kinds of information, from every corner of the web, and they’re going to be primed for some poor decision-making.
And if they manage to maintain, and make smart choices, they will still be subjected to all kinds of opinions and influence.
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So, why, then do the same ideas and limitations not apply when we’re discussing puberty blockers or gender-changing surgery? How does Murthy understand the concerns about a "distorted environment" when it comes to social media but not when we see that the transgender youth population has doubled in the past few years? These kids are clearly being influenced by the same forces Murthy understands to be damaging on social media.
Yet last March, Murthy tweeted a thread targeting Texas for trying to limit "gender affirming care." That care is specifically puberty blockers and surgery. When the number of transgender youth has exploded as it has, it’s deeply irresponsible to simply give these kids blockers or surgery.
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Again, teenagers make poor decisions, on social media but also off when they choose to remove their breasts to become a boy. They should have people in their lives who support them but also don’t let them do whatever they want.
There’s evidence coming out of the UK that the approach of putting confused kids on gender blockers has done damage to these kids, and urging caution. And yet our own top health officials are full speed ahead in their politicized zeal to do whatever these confused kids want. It’s wrong. And just like grown-ups need to control what their child sees on social media, so too does the grown-up need to control what the child does with their body.
In February of last year, Murthy tweeted "During the pandemic, the time teenagers spent in front of screens for activities NOT related to school doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 hours per day. That’s a big change."
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It was. And this happened because of the same politicized policies Murthy now pushes.
Opening schools was something those icky Republicans wanted and the Democrats sided with the teachers’ unions and kept the schools closed. They let their political alliances motivate their decisions and kids were hardest hit.
That’s what is happening now too. In the same thread, Murthy tweeted "We’re in the middle of a large-scale national experiment on our children, and social media companies are the ones with access to the results."
Yes, we are in the middle of that experiment, and kids are the guinea pigs, but social media companies won’t be the ones to save the kids. It will take adults being brave and speaking the truth, something, so far, our Surgeon General won’t do.
