By Gavin Boyle
A new study from Pew revealed that nearly half of all teens recognize that social media is bad for younger people’s mental health, significantly more than those who thought the same in 2022.
“The overuse of social media in our society seems to be the main cause of depression among those in my age group,” a teen boy told Pew. “People seem to let themselves be affected by the opinions of people they don’t know, and it wreaks havoc upon people’s states of mind.”
“The people they see on social media, it makes them think they have to look and be like them or they won’t be liked,” added a teen girl.
In total, 48% of the teens who participated in the study believe that social media has a mostly negative impact on the mental health of young users, up from 32% in a 2022 study, while only 11% believed social media to have a mostly positive effect, down from 24% in 2022. However, these teens were also much more likely to project these feelings on their age group as a whole, rather than on themselves specifically, with only 14% saying the technology had a mainly negative impact on their own lives and 28% saying it was mostly positive for them specifically.
This data shines new light on teens’ changing view towards social media and how it has become more negative even in the past three years. It also helps explain previous studies which have found that many teens are actually in favor of legislation that would ban younger teens from these platforms.
Related: Would the United States Ever Ban Child Social Media Use?
“It is not healthy to see the unattainable every day in your face, sucking your attention. Gossip, trends, and bullying constantly in one ear and out the other every day…” said a Fountain Valley High School student. “It is especially not healthy for growing, impressionable teenagers.”
“As a 16-year-old with social media, I would have been better off without it because it instilled some bad habits like doomscrolling when I need to get up in the morning, to doing nothing on a beautiful Saturday morning,” added a Union High School student. “I think I would have had a better time running around, playing outside when I was younger instead of staying home and watching YouTube all day.”
As the generation that was born with social media has grown up, they are now calling for change in legislation, which has found support from all age groups. After U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a Surgeon General’s warning to be implemented on social media, a study found that 59% of American adults support a social media ban for kids. Florida has since passed a law making it so users have to be at least 14 years old to access social media platforms, while California has passed a law to ban phones in schools to help limit the reach of these platforms.
As it becomes more clear that social media is at least partially to blame for the mental health crisis sweeping the nation, it is encouraging that younger people view these platforms as toxic as well and even support bans to help break the bad habits they encourage.
Read Next: Will Florida’s Social Media Ban for Underage Users Go into Effect?
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