U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has sensibly called on Congress to pass legislation mandating warning labels on social media sites.

In a New York Times essay published Monday, Murthy wrote: “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. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.”

I agree wholeheartedly with this idea. Social media sites are toxic digital cesspools filled with bullies and hateful trolls and cooking videos that never work out right when I try them. They should be banned like asbestos.

Social media sites should absolutely carry warning labels

Barring that, they should at least carry warning labels like you find on packs of cigarettes and on guns and … oh, wait, never mind, I’m being told we don’t put them on guns we just … wait, really? … no warning labels on guns? … that seems dumb … OK, anyway …

Social media is awful for kids:Parents need help regulating their children's social media. A government ban would help.

As Murthy wrote: “There is no seatbelt for parents to click, no helmet to snap in place, no assurance that trusted experts have investigated and ensured that these platforms are safe for our kids.”

A first draft of a surgeon general's warning label for social media

To help in this push to protect children and anyone else who might be easily sucked into the hate-cyclone of social media, I’ve drafted language for the surgeon general’s warning that Congress will hopefully approve and slap on Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and whatever other insidious platforms are out there:

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: TURN AWAY! BEYOND HERE BE MONSTERS! Social media has been found to be dangerous to your mental health, causing everything from stress to sadness to rage to “the yips” to low self-esteem to an incessant feeling that humanity is beyond saving and that the world itself has devolved to the point where someone with the username @PoopLord666 feels it necessary to hurl insults at you for no apparent reason.

Along with its addictive nature, fed by algorithms cooked up by billionaires eager to own at least one more mansion, social media provides a largely anonymous platform for deeply damaged individuals to seek out good people and target their deepest insecurities, imposing on the innocent user the sensation of being stuffed into a high-school locker over and over and over again.

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Should you proceed past this warning, you are guaranteed a life of distraction, frustration and time-wasting the likes of which few psychologists could ever have imagined. The world outside, with all its beauty and wonder, will continue to exist, but you will be trapped inside a box of horrors that will stunt your imagination, blunt your attention span and leave you typing expletive-laden rants at another user who's probably a 12-year-old Russian being paid to foment discontent among Americans. Congratulations, you have wasted precious moments of your life.

Rather than enter this site, the surgeon general recommends you do literally anything else, even if it is smoking cigarettes. Go outside and look at the sky. Read a book. Dig a hole. Say hello to an actual human.

But for the love of God, DO NOT enter this site. Nothing good will come of it and your soul will be lost to the ages. Have you tried bouncing a ball or poking things with a stick? Maybe do that instead.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.

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