As Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg fights allegations that his company’s social media platforms are designed to deliberately addict minors, public health professionals say the scientific case is still emerging.
“The science on social media and health is like early nutrition science,” Dr. Johannes Thrul, an associate professor in the department of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Thursday during a media briefing on smartphone use and its mental and behavioral health impacts. “We know that access and certain ingredients are harmful, but the effects differ across people and contexts.”
What You Need To Know
As Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg fights allegations that his company’s social media platforms are designed to deliberately addict minors, public health professionals say the scientific case is still emergin
“The science on social media and health is like early nutrition science,” Dr. Johannes Thrul, an associate professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Thursday during a media briefing on smart phone use and its mental and behavioral health impacts. “We know that access and certain ingredients are harmful, but the effects differ across people and contexts”
About 95% of teens and almost 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media, even though the required minimum age for most social media platforms is 13
The 20-year-old plaintiff in the Meta social media addiction trial, who goes by the name K.G.M. to protect her privacy, testified on Thursday that she started to use Instagram as a nine-year-old. She said its use of beauty filters on photos and videos to create more idealized images prompted body dysmorphia, anxiety, depression and self-harm
He said developing evidence about social media exposure among young people shows heavy use causes sleep problems and attention fragmentation with links to mental health decline, but the effects are not the same for all individuals.
“Intensive longitudinal studies that track social media use and health daily over extended periods show that the impact of social media ranges from strongly negative to strongly positive, depending on the person, the context and the platform,” Thrul said.
Questions about social media’s impact on children’s mental health are coming to the fore as Meta defends itself in a landmark trial investigating whether Instagram deliberately addicts and harms minors. Thousands of families, as well as school districts and government entities, have sued Meta and other social media companies alleging their platforms were intentionally designed to be addictive and failed to protect kids from developing mental health and behavioral problems.
The 20-year-old plaintiff in the Meta social media addiction trial, who goes by the name K.G.M. to protect her privacy, testified Thursday that she started to use Instagram as a 9-year-old. She said its use of beauty filters on photos and videos to create more idealized images prompted body dysmorphia, anxiety, depression and self-harm.
Social media, she said, “prevented me from making friends because I was on my phone at school. It caused me to compare myself to other people, and that made me feel very depressed.”
About 95% of teens and almost 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media, even though the required minimum age for most social media platforms is 13, Johns Hopkins’ Center for Adolescent Health director, Dr. Tamar Mendelson, said during Thursday’s media briefing.
“While social media isn’t all bad, it does come with risks, particularly during this sensitive stage of development,” Mendelson said. “Young people are particularly at risk because teen brains, identities and coping skills are still developing.”
Social media use appeals to “really, really old, hardwired mammalian biology a lot of the time,” molecular biologist and author of the book “Super Stimulated” Nicklas Brendborg told Spectrum News. “Our brains are perhaps the most complex thing that exists in the universe, but they’re not without their faults and weak points.”
Traits like the infinite scroll create a variable reward system like a slot machine, “where you know there is the possibility of a big reward, but you cannot predict what it will be,” Brendborg said.
Maybe it’s a surprisingly funny video or an extremely attractive person.
“Something triggers a little reward in the brain that came at an unexpected time,” he said. “That’s enough to then get us into this constant searching mode where the brain is trying to predict when the next reward is going to come.”
Photo filters that brighten images also appeal to a primitive part of the brain, but if images are turned to gray scale, he said, “then you get a visceral feel for how much of this attraction comes down to something so basic as just liking bright colors.”
Brains continue to develop until age 25, when the prefrontal cortex responsible for emotional regulation and planning is fully functional, Mendelson said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises delaying social media use until children are 13.
While social connection, creative expression and information gathering are all positive uses for social media, Mendelson added, “There’s also a significant risk of harm, including exposure to racist and sexist content, unrealistic beauty standards, disinformation and cyberbullying.”
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not formally recognize social media addiction, but Mendelson said there are red flags for problematic social media use, such as increasing amounts of time spent on social media, interference with daily tasks like homework, difficulty getting off social media and preoccupation with social media even when the young person isn’t using it.
Mendelson advised parents to encourage their children to fill their time with in-person activities that engage them with the real world and to use social media in positive ways that affirm their identities and expand their social circles.
Experiments with social media reduction or abstinence have underscored social media’s negative impacts on mental health, according to Thrul. His analysis of 20 research projects that encouraged mostly young adults to reduce or quit social media use for multiple weeks at a time showed measurable mental health improvements.
“Social media is not toxic for mental health for all users in all cases,” he said. “But the platforms are generally designed to keep people scrolling and clicking for as long as possible. They are not designed for people’s well-being.”
During questioning by the plaintiff’s lawyer in the trial currently underway in Los Angeles, Zuckerberg said he agrees with a previous statement he made that the existing body of scientific work has not proved that social media causes mental health harms.
While there is evidence that social media has negative health effects for young people, on Thursday, Dr. Thrul said the questions that still need to be answered are how social media affects health, for whom and under what conditions.