Health warnings could reduce youth’s hours spent on social media

Published on

05/09/2026 - 12:02 GMT+2

Alcohol and tobacco products have health warnings about the negative impacts. Researchers say that social media could benefit from similar warnings too, such as “Using social media causes sleep problems. This is bad for your health,” and “Social media is associated with significant mental health harms for children and young adults.”

Exactly such pop-up messages showed up in a study published on JAMA Health Forum. The messages informed about the harmful impact of social media — such as depression, anxiety, worsened body image and sleep disruption. Researchers hope this could be yet another tool in the toolbox aimed at managing youth’s social media time more healthily.

“With substances like tobacco and alcohol, we find, on average, that well-designed warning labels change behavior,” lead study author Anna Grummon, assistant professor of paediatrics, said. As social media is a completely different product compared to cigarettes or alcohol, “where you just put the warning on the product and it lives there,” these warnings have to be “basically pop-ups,” Grummon said.