Everyone says social media is bad for teens. Prove it’s something else.

There are increasingly loud public warnings that social media is harming teen mental health – most recently from the US Surgeon General – adding to many parents’ fears about what all the time spent on phones is doing to their child’s brain. children.

While many scientists share the concern, there’s little research to show that social media is harmful — or to pinpoint which sites, apps, or features are problematic. There isn’t even a shared definition of what social media is. It leaves parents, policymakers and other adults in teens’ lives with no clear guidelines on what to worry about.

“We have some evidence to guide us, but this is a scenario where we just need to know more,” said Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist at Brown who studies the subject.

What counts as social media when it comes to teen health?

The general surgeon, Dr. Vivek Murthy, warned last month that social media carried a “deep risk of harm”, but he did not name any apps or websites. His report acknowledged that “there is no single, universally accepted scientific definition of social media.”

Most studies look at platforms with user-generated content, where people can interact with each other. But that raises many questions. Does it matter if teens see messages from people they know or don’t know? Does it matter if they post or just view? Do multiplayer games count? Dating apps? Group texts?

YouTube illustrates the challenge. It’s by far the most popular site among teens: 95 percent use it, and nearly 20 percent say they do so “almost constantly,” says Pew Research Center found it. It has all the features of social media, but it is not included in most studies.

Some researchers speculated that YouTube may not have as many harmful effects because teens often use it passively, like TV, and don’t post or comment as often as they do with other apps. Or, researchers said, it could carry the same risks: It offers endless scrolling and algorithmic recommendations, similar to TikTok. Anyway, there is no clear data.

What don’t we know?

Reviews of the existing studies of social media use and adolescent mental health have shown that the majority of it is “weak”, “inconsistent,” “inconclusive“”a bag of mixed findings” And “weighed down by a lack of quality’ and ‘contradictory evidence.”

Research has not yet shown which sites, apps or features of social media have which effects on mental health. “We don’t have enough evidence to tell parents to delete a particular app or stop it after a certain number of hours,” said Sophia Choukas-Bradley, a psychologist and director from the Teen and Young Adult Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.

It is also difficult to prove that social media causes poor mental health, rather than being correlated with it. Most investigations measure time spent on social media and psychological symptoms, and many, but not all, have found an association. But other researchers say measuring time spent isn’t enough: In these studies, it’s unclear if time spent on social media is the problem, or if it’s time away from other things like exercising or sleeping. And the studies obscure, for example, whether someone spends hours behind screens to escape mental constraint or to seek support from friends.

A few studies have tried new approaches around these problems. Aat the start of Facebook’s mid-2000s rollout, compared college campuses that had access to it with campuses that had not, and found that its arrival had a negative effect on student mental health.

A carefully designed study, Great project at the University of Amsterdam and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, looks at both the average effects of social media on 1,000 teens it examines and how they vary by individual, and tracks adolescents over time. It has found that the time spent on social media is less of a factor than teenagers moods while using it.

Other studies have used brain scans to show that in adolescents looked at likes or frequently controlled feeds, it activated the brain’s sensitivity to social rewards and punishments.

What else does the research reveal?

“We usually find a small, negative correlation” between social media use and mental health, says Amy Orben, a psychologist who leads the Digital Mental Health Group at the University of Cambridge. “But we don’t know what’s behind it. It could be that those who feel worse start using social media more, it could be that social media makes them feel worse, or it could be socioeconomic status or something else that causes that link.

All in all research finds that social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful, and that its effects depend on individuals and what they see.

“We can’t say, ‘Don’t do X, Y’s fine, stay away from Z,'” said Amanda Lenhart, chief of research at Common Sense Media. “Unlike TV or movies, it is impossible to know in advance what children will see on social media. Sometimes it’s hair dye or dance videos, but sometimes it’s white supremacist or content about eating disorders.

Teens with certain vulnerabilities, such as those with Negative self imagearm body image or social struggle — seem to be most at risk. A experiment found that exposure to manipulated images led directly to poorer body image, especially for girls who are more likely to compare themselves to others. Another found it that using social media to compare themselves to others and seek approval was associated with depressive symptoms, especially for teens who struggle socially.

Social media often has positive and negative effects on the same person. Project Awesome found that using it is associated with higher levels of both depression and anxiety And happiness or well-being.

In a Common Sense report, teenage girls with symptoms of depression were more likely than girls without symptoms to say that social media made other people’s lives seem better than their own — and also more often said it improved their social connections. They found mental health resources on social media, as well as harmful content about suicide. Overall, the majority of girls said the effects of social media features were neutral.

Why isn’t there more thorough research?

Academic research takes a long time – often years to get funding, develop studies, hire staff, recruit participants, analyze data and submit it for publication. Recruiting minors is even more difficult. By the time a study is completed, teens will often have moved on to another platform – much of the research on specific platforms, for example is on Facebook, which most teens no longer use. Technology companies also haven’t shared enough data to help researchers understand the impact of their products, the surgeon general’s report said.

How can future studies be more convincing?

Experts said they would like to see research that investigates specific species of social media content, and issues such as how social media use in adolescence affects people in adulthood, what it does to neural pathways, and how young people can be protected from negative effects.

Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge, psychologists who have expressed deep concern about the effect of social media on teenagers, have suggested an experiment where entire high schools are randomly assigned to avoid social media or not.

What should parents do in the meantime?

Experts agreed that waiting for an investigation was not an option. They also largely agreed that some level of social media use was beneficial. “There are harmful negative developmental implications of not using social media at all, as this is where the social interaction takes place,” Professor Choukas-Bradley said.

Researchers said social media rules should depend on the maturity of individual teens and their challenges, and addressing the risks should also be the responsibility of tech companies and policymakers, not just parents. They agreed on a few steps parents can take now:

• Set boundariesespecially around bedtime.

• Don’t give a young teen a smartphone right away. Start with a smartwatch or a phone without internet.

• Talk to your teens: let them show you what they see, ask them how they feel, and discuss privacy and safety.

• make a family screen time table which takes into account which activities increase stress versus provide long-term satisfaction.

• Model responsible internet use yourself.

It’s not about monitoring certain apps, said Caleb T. Carr, a professor of communication in the state of Illinois: “Parents should interact with their children instead. Just like parents did pre-social media, talking about being good people and citizens, talking about respecting others and themselves, and talking about how their day was.

Alicia Parlapiano contributed images