The U.S. Surgeon General has some tips for parents and teens on social media use

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, is calling for “immediate action” by tech companies and lawmakers to protect kids' and adolescents' mental health on social media.

But after years of middling and insufficient action by both social media platforms and policymakers, parents and young people still bear most of the burden in navigating the fast-changing, often harmful world of secretive algorithms, addictive apps and extreme and inappropriate content found on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

So what can parents and young people do now? The Surgeon General has some tips.

“Our children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s impact,” Murthy said in an advisory released on Tuesday. “Their childhoods and development are happening now:”