U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy wants social media platforms to use warning labels to help shield young people from possible harm.

Murthy is calling on Congressional leaders to pass legislation requiring the labels, saying the platforms are partly to blame for the “mental health crisis” adolescents are fighting, the New York Post reported on Monday.

The doctor put forth his call to action in an op-ed published Monday in the New York Times. In 2023, Murthy warned about the dangers of excessive social media use by teenagers, saying it has made problems such as anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia worse, according to Breitbart News.

The Post article continued:

“Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours,” Murthy wrote.

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Murthy found that “Evidence from tobacco labels shows that surgeon general’s warnings can increase awareness and change behavior” and can help parents become more aware of the harmfulness social networks can cause their children.

“When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children’s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes,” he wrote.

A study in July 2019 found that social media usage was linked to teenage depression, and Instagram was apparently the most harmful among the group, per Breitbart News.

“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,” Murthy wrote in his op-ed, per Today.

A study by psychologists found that regular use of social media was linked to changes in teenagers’ brains, Breitbart News’s Lucas Nolan reported in January 2023.

“This is especially troubling in light of the fact that the most popular social media platform for American teenagers is China’s TikTok, which pushes harmful messaging on teens as soon as they sign up for an account,” Nolan wrote.