From BBC Learning English, this is Learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.
In this programme, is social media the news smoking?
Hello, I'm Georgie.
And I'm Pippa.
In this programme, we look at one big news story and the vocabulary in the headlines that will help you understand it.
You can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episode
as well as a worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
So Pippa, let's hear more about this story.
A group of senior doctors in the UK say that time spent on screens and social media harms children.
The UK government is considering how to deal with concerns about the impact of social media on teenagers.
Banning social media for under 16s, as has already happened in Australia, is one of the options being discussed.
The senior doctors from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges compared social media to smoking
because they say the issue is a unifying force for the medical profession,
or in other words, many doctors are worried about the impact of social media and the harm it could cause.
It's difficult to prove that social media directly causes harm,
but it has been linked to problems like anxiety and poor well-being in some studies.
Let's have our first headline.
This is from BBC News.
Overwhelming consensus that screen time harms children, top doctors say.
And that headline again from BBC News, overwhelming consensus that screen time harms children, top doctors say.