U.S. Advisory warns kids spend more time on screens than school — experts question RFK Jr.’s approach

You’re better off spending less time on your phone screen. There will always be an urgent news item you need to know about. A bill being proposed that will make your life just a little worse if you don’t reach out to your representative to express your concern. A war being waged that will make your groceries cost more. But experts still insist that too much screen time is ruining the mental health of children especially, and they also say Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposed solution is easier said than done.

According to a report published by the Department of Health and Human Services, excessive exposure to phone screens for children not only causes mental health problems, but also harms their physical health. According to a medical journal called Scientific American, the warning came from a surgeon general advisory — it’s worth noting that the Donald Trump administration recently withdrew its nominee for surgeon general, so the office still has no official head.

Still, RFK Jr. — as the individual currently in charge of medical policy in the country — offered his thoughts on the report. Secretary Kennedy said, “Social media is only one aspect of this ongoing screen time problem. Behavior patterns involving gaming, online gambling and other forms of virtual interaction are emerging.” He continued, “While this report uses ‘screen time’ as a widely understood shorthand, we want people to understand that we are referring to the entire digital ecosystem of apps, smartphones, tablets, chatbots, and other screen-associated devices and interfaces.”

The advisory suggested that parents need to actually create a screen-time diet around when and how their children can use phones, computers, iPads, and any other screens they can form a bond with. The report also advocates for health care providers to ask parents about how much screen time their children are exposed to. It additionally encouraged researchers to conduct more studies into the long-term effects of prolonged screen exposure and asked social media companies to warn users about excessive exposure to social media.

There are some challenges that immediately arose, however. RFK Jr. has, rightfully, gained an unenviable reputation within the medical community and wider society in general. There are the funny bits — where he posts pictures of himself swimming in jeans or catching snakes with his bare hands in a friend’s backyard. But there are also dangerous elements of his persona, where he has willingly championed people using bleach to cure HIV and autism.

Experts warn that blanket bans on screen time don’t work — there’s nuance in this growing crisis. Using a screen to complete an educational project, for instance, will not give a child the same level of anxiety that doomscrolling social media might.

There’s also the conflict of interest involving who has the ear of the White House. The tech titans who have become part and parcel of Trump’s economic plan are the same people who rely on these social media platforms making as much money as possible. And many of them are already facing lawsuits because of these practices.

To make matters worse, it hasn’t even been more than a year since Elon Musk — who himself owns the social media platform X — led DOGE in gutting medical research that he personally considered a waste of money.