Why I'm Skeptical About the Link Between Social Media and Mental
Health
The evidence on this topic is still underwhelming
Dylan Selterman
So much commentary has emerged about
American teenagers’ mental health since the incredibly bleak CDC report
was released in February. A lot of people believe social media usage is
to blame for these recent trends, especially for teen girls. But
psychologists, particularly developmental and clinical psychologists who
work with adolescents, are not uniformly backing the “social media
hypothesis.”
Here's why I remain skeptical that social media use is
responsible for rising distress.
- Studies show conflicting results. Some researchers find links between
social media use and well-being, and others do not, or find mixed
results. Some developmental psychologists go as far as to suggest that
social media might even have positive effects on well-being.
- Studies vary in quality. Some folks claim that if there are 30 studies
published on a topic, and 17 of them (i.e., a majority) report a
correlation, then we can be confident that this correlation exists. I
don’t buy this. What if those 17 used poor methods while the other 13
used stronger methods? As we learned before, people are not accurate in
reporting how much time they spend on various activities, and
researchers recommend objective measures for app usage. Let’s remember:
quality over quantity. Even hundreds of crappy studies shouldn’t
outweigh a handful of good ones.
- “Who’s on first? What’s on second?” Even if there is a link between
social media use and mental health, it’s not clear which precedes the
other. It’s kind of a cliché to say, “correlation doesn’t equal
causation.” But what do we really mean by that? Does anyone really think
that depression causes increased social media use? Well, that may not be
such a crazy idea after all. Some psychologists suggest that teenagers
turn to social media in order to cope with negative emotions. We saw
this during the COVID lockdowns, when teens were physically isolated but
were still craving social connection. Some longitudinal studies show
that when teenagers’ depression gets worse, that predicts using social
media more, but not the other way around.
- There’s a missing cognitive link. We still don’t know what exactly about
social media would make people feel distressed. Is it social comparison?
Sedentary lifestyle? Sleep disruption? Physical isolation? There’s no
consensus on this. And simply pointing to generic “screen time” doesn’t
help clarify things.
- There is no
clinical significance. Of the studies showing a link between social
media use and mental health, they do not suggest an increased risk for
mental illness (e.g., bipolar disorder). This is an important
distinction. Just because someone feels upset doesn’t mean they have a
mental health condition. Researchers suggest that digital technologies
are “unlikely to be of clinical or practical significance.”
- Social media is evolving. Does anyone really think that Facebook,
Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Reddit all have the same social or
psychological properties? Perhaps there was a fleeting moment in recent
history when people on social media typically encountered photos of
their friends looking unrealistically awesome or beautiful, which caused
some kind of negative social comparison that was especially detrimental
in teenagers. But this is no longer the norm. On most social media
platforms, masses of people are consuming content that is generated by a
small group of creators. Plus, most teenagers don’t even use Facebook
anymore, which is the platform that has been most extensively
researched. And weren’t teenagers in the early 2010s most strongly
influenced by Tumblr culture? Social media apps are not a monolith.
- We’ve been on this path for a long
time. In North America, rising depression and distress have been going
up for 80 years. This is something that even researchers who blame
social media as a causal factor (like Jean Twenge) have acknowledged.
Why weren’t people in the 1980s or '90s asking why adolescent depression
was at an all-time high? This isn’t new. And it’s going to keep getting
worse in the absence of major cultural adjustments. We aren’t a mentally
healthy society, and we haven’t been for a very long time.
There Is
No Consensus Here
Among scientists who study adolescent mental
health, most are not concerned about social media use. A few of them are
concerned, and they should be taken seriously. But it’s important to
keep in mind when a passionate advocate like Jon Haidt openly admits
that he is in a minority of scholars with this viewpoint. That’s very
important context for this discussion, and one of the reasons why I
respect Haidt as a scholar.
We can have conversations about
common-sense reforms to social media apps for the betterment of society.
That’s unobjectionable. But we should refrain from making strong claims
or prescriptions in the absence of strong evidence. For example, if one
recommends that we restrict young people’s digital technology usage
until they pass through puberty, is there any evidence to suggest that
this will have a positive effect on their well-being? I remain
skeptical.
Let's Not Make Things Worse
In the words of Greg
Lukianoff, "We're teaching young people the mental habits of anxious and
depressed people." If we try to restrict young people's social media
use, we’re making this exact error. We’re imparting to adolescents the
lesson that they’re incapable of developing good mental health without
adult intervention. Seems like a really bad idea to me. We should be
teaching them resilience.
I believe that poor mental health in
teenagers stems from broader societal problems that must be addressed
with more creative solutions designed to maximize psychological need
fulfillment and self-determination. If we create environments and
communities in which teens can flourish, then I don’t see social media
having detrimental effects on a mass scale.
References
Cauberghe, V., Van Wesenbeeck, I., De Jans, S., Hudders, L., & Ponnet,
K. (2021). How adolescents use social media to cope with feelings of
loneliness and anxiety during COVID-19 lockdown. Cyberpsychology,
Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(4), 250-257.
Heffer, T., Good,
M., Daly, O., MacDonell, E., & Willoughby, T. (2019). The longitudinal
association between social-media use and depressive symptoms among
adolescents and young adults: An empirical reply to Twenge et al.
(2018). Clinical Psychological Science, 7(3), 462-470.
Odgers, C. L.,
& Jensen, M. R. (2020). Annual research review: Adolescent mental health
in the digital age: Facts, fears, and future directions. Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 61(3), 336-348.
From: Psychology Today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-resistance-hypothesis/202303/why-im-skeptical-about-the-link-between-social-media-and
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