In 2023, a youth mental health advisory was published pertaining to questions like “How can social media affect teens?” This advisory put together decades of studies pertaining to the interactions that teens and young adults can have online and what impact that can have, both positive and negative.
The findings indicate both positive and negative impacts from social media usage. For parents, the negative potential impacts far outweigh the positive, with risks of:
- Harm from content exposure
- Harm from excessive or problematic use
- Harm to mental health
For parents and teens, it’s important to understand the positive and negative effects and to get help where necessary.
How Can Social Media Affect Teens?
Social media can provide a chance for building connections and community, sharing important information, and even developing a safe place for self-expression. While there is ample opportunity for connecting with peers and providing social support, especially for underserved groups, there are also potential harms associated with social media and teens.
Overall, teens who spend at least 3 hours each day on social media have twice the risk of experiencing poor mental health as compared to teens who don’t use social media to the same extent, particularly depression and anxiety. There are very high correlations in girls between social media and body image or disordered eating behaviors. For boys, the link is associated with bullying.
How Can Social Media Affect Teens Positively?
Social media is a place for people to connect. Teens and young adults alike can find a space for better self-expression where they can form new friendships and maintain old friendships.
Studies have found that social media provides a place for developing social connections, such as:
- More diverse peer groups
- Social support
- Buffers against stress
When teens use social media in a limited and responsible fashion, they might be able to connect to other peers who can help them with their identity management, offer social support, or otherwise diminish the stress that teens might associate with things like academic burnout.
- 58 percent of adolescents report that social media helps them feel accepted
- 67 percent of teens report that if they are going through a struggle, social media can give them support from other people
- 71 percent of adolescents say that social media is a place to show off their creative side
- 80 percent of teens indicate that social media helps them stay connected to what’s happening with their friends
Research indicates that social media can also provide mental health interventions and maintain connections for those who have already sought help in person. With our facility, for example, teens can learn to utilize social media responsibly in a way that maintains the connections they build at our facility.
However, there may be situations where individuals are not receiving the benefits of social media but rather the harm.
How Can Social Media Affect Teens Negatively?
Content Exposure
Social media platforms are a place to algorithmically spread harmful, extreme, or inappropriate content, and while social media can provide a sense of community, it can also normalize harmful behaviors, leading to:
- Eating disorders
- Body image issues
- Poor self-esteem
- Social comparison
- Bullying
- Depression
Nearly half of all teens between the ages of 13 and 17 said social media makes them feel worse about their body image, and 64 percent said they were often exposed to hate-based content.
Excessive and Problematic Use
Social media platforms are designed to maximize engagement, effectively keeping users on the platform with things like:
- Popularity displays
- Infinite scroll
- Autoplay
- Push notifications
For teens, this becomes a problem; 30 percent of social media use by teens is because of self-control challenges that are made worse by habit.
For teens, social media exposure, especially at a young age, overstimulates the reward center in their brain, and that stimulation can trigger pathways that are very similar to addiction, leading to frequent and problematic use that changes brain structure much the same as a gambling addiction or substance abuse addiction.
- Respondents to a national survey of girls between ages 11 and 15 indicated that they “feel addicted” to at least one social media platform.
- Fifty percent of teens indicate they would struggle to give up social media.
- Seventy-five percent of teens think tech companies manipulate them to spend more time on social media
Despite knowing that they are likely being manipulated, teenagers still spend an average of 3.5 hours per day on social media, with 1 out of every four spending 5 hours or more per day, and 1 out of 7 spending seven or more hours per day.
This excessive and problematic use has been linked to:
- Reduced sleep duration, poor quality sleep, and sleep difficulties
- Depression
- ADHD symptoms
- Anxiety
Other studies have linked it to anxiety and neuroticism from a pervasive culture centered on the fear of missing out.
Getting Help with Social Media Use Among Teens
At NY Center For Living, we provide several outpatient programs designed specifically for teens, young adults, and their families. These programs are all outpatient by nature, meaning teens and young adults can still access the mental health or addiction treatment they might need while continuing with their academic pursuits and other obligations.
Located on the East Side, we aim to provide a place for teens and their families to get help if they notice symptoms associated with excessive or problematic social media use, or if they are struggling with things like bullying and eating behaviors because of social media exposure.
We can also help build a better sense of community in person by giving access to like-minded peers who might be going through some of the same struggles and might be looking for a healthier way to build concrete relationships.
CTA:
Contact our team at 646) 692-0034 to learn how social media can affect teens.
Sources
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf
