Photo: monkeybusinessimages, spiral: akkachai thotubtha - Getty Images. Illustrations: Tim Czerniakowski
Social media teen
If you care about children, teens or young adults, then the impact of social media should be on your mental radar. It has certainly been in the news, from contentious Congressional hearings focused on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter (X) and the rest, to the alarming statistics on declining mental health in our youth. The research on the psychological effects of social media is contentious, with conclusions ranging from “Don’t worry about it” to “The sky is falling!”
Nonetheless, the reliable data are decidedly alarming. Over the past 14 years, the prevalence of depression and anxiety in this age cohort (teens through mid-20’s) has more than doubled. For young adults, the suicide rate has risen over 40%, while among those aged 10-14, it has tripled (quadrupled in females). One particularly alarming survey found that, at some point, over a quarter of high school girls develop a suicide plan, a clear warning sign of potential self-harm. These youngsters have most of their lives in front of them, yet many are sending a message that reads “no thanks.”
So, what factors are at work here? Many point to the pandemic, noting the isolation it imposed during a critical juncture in the social development of many young people. However, these disturbing upward trends were well underway before COVID hit. Did the pandemic hurt? Sure, but not enough to account for this level of mental mayhem. The majority of reputable studies suggest the primary culprit is social media, and the main conduit for its dirty work is the smartphone. And while researchers remind us that a correlation isn’t necessarily a cause, the decline in mental health among our youth coincided directly with the proliferation of smartphones.
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The average adolescent spends over seven hours daily on screens, a sizable portion of that on social media, while time spent in face-to-face interactions with their peers outside of school has plummeted. For teens, social media is replacing real-time interactions as a primary conduit for assessing their self-worth and formulating their identity. In this, there are two primary dangers:
- The comparison game: Most social media users photoshop their online identities to look their best, both physically and socially. Two triggers here are body image and popularity. When a young person views all this “Aren’t I wonderful?” content and optimized photos or sees that someone has thousands of friends and “likes,” they can easily feel inferior and undesirable, leading to depression, social withdrawal and, particularly among girls, disordered eating.
- Cyberbullying: To haters and mean-spirited miscreants, social media is a godsend. In real time, bullies must face their victims, who can fight back or flee. On the Internet, they can snipe from the bushes, sometimes anonymously, and create a “blood in the water” scenario where many other goons pile on. One tormentor can become hundreds, and the harassment can prove unrelenting. A plethora of suicides by young people are directly attributable to cyberbullying.
The data show girls are more susceptible to these negative influences than boys, in part because they spend more time on social media, while boys gravitate more to gaming. The latter is interactive, while the former is passive, and passivity is associated with depression and feelings of helplessness.
This leaves parents in a tough spot. The task of regulating their children’s social media exposure falls squarely on them, and many need help with this. Help in the form of regulations that require social media companies to do their part, and while a few states have moved in that direction, most have not.
So, irrespective of government regulation, why don’t the social media moguls do more to protect young people? Greed. A Harvard study found they rake in $11 billion annually by advertising to users under 18 years old. This despite some of the industry’s own research showing they are harming the mental health of youngsters.
Zuckerberg, Musk and the rest of the money mongers fit this description from Professor Cal Newport: “The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children.”
They should be ashamed, but clearly are not.
