October 17, 2024
How influential is social media on young people's mental health?
A significant body of evidence tells us that young people's mental health has decreased over time, and a potential link between social media use and this mental health decline has triggered wide interest and concern. Research into social media use and mental health is being conducted at a rapid pace but, so far, findings are far from conclusive. Our new Researcher of the Month, Dr Margarita Panayiotou, adds to this body of work. She led a team of researchers who recently published a study involving thousands of young people in the UK. It set out to explore the interplay between social media use and teens' mental health, wellbeing and social life, and found that when considering the complex combination of multiple factors, things such as a lack of family support are arguably more important for adolescent mental health than social media use.
Summary
The study uses data from the Understanding Society cohort, and explores the responses of 12,041 UK young people aged 10-15 from a nationally representative sample. The Understanding Society study follows thousands of young people and adults longitudinally, asking them to complete questionnaires every year. Adolescence is a complex developmental stage influenced by multiple interacting biological, social, and broader societal factors. These might include friendships, family relationships, teens' general environment, wider societal issues and school, as well as digital habits. Many existing studies focus on social media as an isolated issue. In contrast, Dr Panayiotou wanted to examine the impact of social media within the complex systems of adolescent mental health and development more generally. To do so, she and her team used a 'panel network analysis' to explore associations between social media use, mental health symptoms and social systems.
"Generally, our findings indicate that the time spent interacting with social media is among the least influential factors within adolescent mental health, functioning, and social life. In fact, life dissatisfaction and lack of family support were the most influential risk factors for females and males, respectively." (Dr Panayiotou, et al., 2023)
Dr Panayiotou and her team found that social media use was one of the least influential factors on mental health, functioning and wellbeing for this specific group of young people. They found that there were other factors, such as a lack of family support, concentration and restlessness problems, general life and family satisfaction which were all more influential on the participants’ mental health than social media.
This is not to say that there were no links. For females, reports of greater social media use, on average, were related to worse concentration and life satisfaction, whereas for males, these were associated with lower family support and higher levels of worry. Importantly, positive social media associations were also observed, but for females only, where higher use was related to less nervousness and greater friend satisfaction.
For females, greater levels of social media use predicted more concentration problems. This was not the case for males. However, interestingly, dissatisfaction with schoolwork and symptoms of restlessness were found to be more influential on concentration than social media (dissatisfaction with schoolwork having twice the effect of social media).
The network model allowed the researchers to see some interesting sequencing of events, or cascading effects. As an example, for males, being bullied could lead to social withdrawal. In turn, this predicted greater family dissatisfaction, which in turn predicted worse family support, finally predicting greater social media use and potentially influencing happiness levels. For males, unlike females, social media was not found to predict any indicators across time. In fact, for boys, the opposite was found to be true, in that greater social media use was predicted by a lack of family support. It is therefore possible that young males who do not have a good family support system may be more likely to resort to social media. On the other hand, in females, the study showed a sequential, cascading effect where dissatisfaction with appearance may potentially reduce general life satisfaction. In turn, this might impact on happiness levels, which might in turn influence levels of social withdrawal.
Implications
“Our findings suggest that the current depiction of social media use as the culprit of adolescent mental health difficulties is unwarranted and highlight the need for social policy initiatives that focus on the home and school environment to foster resilience.” (Dr Margarita Panayiotou et al, 2023)
In the conclusion to their paper, Dr Panayiotou and team note that in terms of targeting risk and protective factors in the complex systems underpinning the development of adolescent mental health, the findings suggest that intervention efforts focusing on key aspects of young people’s social lives and their experience of school might be more beneficial than simply attempting to regulate their time spent on social media. So what can parents and teachers do?
Speak with young people openly to identify their specific needs.
Take an interest in their digital lives and take on board what they say that they need, rather than making assumptions. Consider what key challenges they face to enable a focus on tailored guidance. Aim to identify the positives and manage the negatives.
Make use of existing resources.
Organisations such as Childnet, Internet Matters and our own Tooled Up platform all offer excellent, specific, evidence-based guidance on social media issues, which go beyond safety to consider other issues such as appearance or fear of missing out.
Be curious.
Talk to young people about their use of social media. Ask them what they like about the platforms that they're using. Where do they engage that makes them feel good? What have they learned? Asking curious questions can help to establish what aspects of their use are beneficial and can help to nudge them away from anything that doesn’t make them feel good.
Acknowledge the challenges that they face.
Some challenges associated with social media appear again and again in research. One of the main pressures that we know about is appearance, comparison and body ideals. Other important issues to consider include the pressure of staying online and following digital etiquette, fear of missing out, the exposure to risky content, and the potentially overwhelming exposure to information. In conversations with young people, acknowledge that if they do struggle online, this is very normal and is something that young people commonly report.
Put things into context.
Remember that whilst some experiences are unique to social media (such as the constant exposure to so much information), others have recurred in different contexts over time. Challenges with appearance comparison and body ideals were, in the past, explored on TV or in magazines or newspapers. Now they are online. We can learn from the past here.
Model and develop healthy habits, including phone-free time.
Navigate a balanced approach to life together. This should involve time away from phones and real life socialising, spending time with family where possible and doing other things that you and they find enjoyable, alongside digital experiences. It is important to bear in mind that this will vary depending on a young person's circumstances. Notice and reflect on your own habits too.
Bring young people into conversations around rule setting.
If, as a school or parent, you are considering implementing digital use guidance, or perhaps you are thinking about joint rules across a year or friendship group, make sure that you involve children in their design and try to reach some common agreement around rules that will work. If young people are consulted, and feel involved and invested in guidelines, they are much more likely to follow them.
Be sceptical of simplistic answers to complex questions.
In Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book, The Anxious Generation, he argued that smartphones caused a mental health crisis in adolescents through social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. He calls it the “great rewiring of childhood” and “the single largest reason for the tidal wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s”. Dr Panayiotou believes this to be an overstatement and oversimplification of a very complex issue, especially given what we know about the complexity of adolescent development and mental health. How can one thing be the sole reason behind mental health decline given all these interacting factors? When we do acknowledge complexity, as in Dr Panayiotou’s recent paper, a different picture can emerge, one which stresses the importance of considering our children's lives in the round, not only focusing on one single issue.
Listen to our podcast interview with Dr Panayiotou here.
Dr Margarita Panayiotou
Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology at the University of Manchester
Dr Margarita Panayiotou is a senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology at the University of Manchester. She is interested in understanding and improving adolescent mental health. Dr Panayiotou is currently leading a project that focuses on better understanding and assessing adolescent social media experience.
Dr Margarita Panayiotou
Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology at the University of Manchester
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Deepfakes and Damage: Helping Schools Respond to AI-Generated Image Abuse
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Empowering young people to overcome low mood and boost wellbeing
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