Teens’mental health may be hurt by phones and social media
What Screen Time is Your Internet View of Self-harm? The Impacts of Social Media on Mental Health in a Longitudinal Study
The origins of the mental-health conditions are shaped by family, friends and genetics, according to researchers. Technology probably has an effect, but it depends on an individual’s background, the social-media platforms they use and their view of the internet. And young people’s response to social media varies from one person to the next, studies show. A review highlighted that there was evidence that viewing self-harm content online leads to harmful behavior. But in some cases, say mental-health professionals, troubled young people considering self-harm have found crucial support and help online.
During the inquest, a representative of Meta, which owns Instagram, defended the platform’s policies, and a Pinterest representative admitted that the site was not safe when Russell used it. Both firms pointed to the ways they were improving their sites as a response to the findings. Last year, Instagram launched ‘teen accounts’, which restrict the content young users can view.
For some people use of social-media can lead to terrible consequences. In September 2022, for instance, a London coroner’s inquest found that 14-year-old Molly Russell “died from an act of self-harm whilst suffering from depression and the negative effects of on-line content”. Russell took her life in November last year, a coroner’s inquest has found, because of content she found on the platforms.
Many scientists look at correlations between measures of screen or social-media use and mental health in longitudinal studies, which track people over time. Although some studies have found benefits, others have reported harms. Such analyses rely on participants to self-report their screen time, which is a weakness. People can’t remember, and they are embarrassed to answer honestly. “We all agree it’s terrible,” Haidt says.
Some researchers have observed the potential benefits of groups. She says, “They use their phones in really effective ways a lot of the time, to find belonging and community.”
Ine Beyens, who leads the study, says that the results may help explain why other studies look at averages and find little impact. She says that when all the effects are put together, there is a small effect.
Haidt takes a different viewpoint. He says that the type of small effects that scientists have found is not unusual in public-health studies based on crude measures, such as self-reported screen time. He argues that the effects are often masked when researchers combine and analyse different results — such as data on boys and girls, or measures of overall well-being with those on depression. He says the links are better inanalyses about depression and anxiety. The evidence of harm is there and this is getting very frustrating.
The evidence from experimentations in which people swear off phones and social media for a while has been mixed. Ruth Plackett, a health researcher at University College London, led a systematic review of 23 randomized trials in which she found some evidence that abstaining from social media improved depression measures. Other studies didn’t find an effect.
Odgers and other researchers say it is not known whether social media causes depression or if young people who are depressed spend more time on social media. “We might have the arrow pointing in the wrong direction,” Odgers says.
To try and make sense of the conflicting literature, researchers have done dozens of reviews analysing many studies together, again with varying results. Many have found little or no effect of these technologies on mental health. One 2020 analysis3 of more than 80 reviews concluded that there was, on average, a “negative but very small” association between adolescents’ use of digital technology, and social media in particular, and psychological well-being. A literature review by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine does not support the idea that social media causes changes in adolescent health at the population level.
The New York Times has a book about what’s wrong with kids that is near the top. The Anxious Generation (2024), by psychologist Jonathan Haidt, argues that increasing time spent on smartphones and social media, at the expense of play, is rewiring the brains of children and adolescents and driving soaring rates of mental illness. It leapt to the top of the bestseller list when it was released a year ago and has sat there ever since.
There is no denying that adolescent mental health is a huge concern. Over the past two decades, the rates of mental illness have increased in adolescents in many countries. The share reporting symptoms of depression rose from 16% in 2010 to 21% in 2015, and the rate of suicide rose from 5.4 to 7 per 100,000, according to surveys of US adolescents. Some of the trends seem to be down to increasedawareness and reporting of mental-health concerns, as well as other causes.
The goal is for young people to be able to balance screen time with sleep, exercise and other real-world pleasures, and to be nurtured so that they can makeinformed decisions about the healthy use of technology. Adults can learn to find that balance as well.
Finding ways to help young people navigate technology does not have to wait until its consequences are nailed down. Schools that ban phones — as many are now doing — provide a natural experiment to study whether this restriction boosts grades and well-being. A study of 30 secondary schools in England, published in February, did not find evidence that restrictive phone policies are linked with reduced overall phone use or improved mental health4 — suggesting that phone bans might not be a panacea.
For their part, researchers should focus on well-designed, rigorous studies. They could engage in an approach used in other fields called adversarial collaboration, in which researchers with clashing views work together on shared studies that could resolve their dispute. The research’s validity and public reception would improve with the involvement of young people, teachers, parents and caregivers. A study that doesn’t find much evidence of negative impacts is not received very well because it confuses the people on the ground.
There are ways to tease apart at least some of this tangle, but it needs the technology companies to play ball. Scientists agree they need better, fine-grained data on what young people are doing and seeing on their phones. Firms that have these data are hesitant to give it to researchers. This is admittedly a legally and ethically fraught area: young people can’t give research consent if they are underage, and their privacy and security must be protected. It should be possible for companies and researchers to use the data in a way that safeguards are put in place.
It’s believed that phones can be distraction and that apps can be addictive, if people are encouraged to scroll through social-media content. Technology companies have an incentive to keep people interested in their business models.
Social media may have an impact on mental health but it depends on an individual’s background, social media platforms they use and their view of the Internet, a study said. The study also found that young people’s response to social media fluctuates from one person to the next. However, it added that it is not known whether social media causes depression.