Like the UK and other countries Take steps to follow Australia’s lead in restricting access to social media for under-16s, we still do not know much about how technology affects young people’s mental health over time.
For example, does using social media for just a few hours every day increase the damage? Are younger people more vulnerable than older people? Is there a difference between girls and boys?
Our A new studyPublished today within the Medical Journal of Australia, provides some vital answers to those questions. It found clear risks from overuse of social media on young people’s mental health.
Alongside this, we also conducted a recent survey of Australian parents about efforts to limit access to social media for young people. The findings suggest that the law is changing parents’ views and behaviors about their kid’s use of social media.
A discussion on age
When Australia restricted access to social media for under-16s last December, there was much debate about whether the age limit of 16 was appropriate.
were within the variety of Longitudinal study which examined the connection between adolescent social media use and mental health. But few have systematically investigated whether the risks of social media use during adolescence vary by age.
An enormous one 2022 study The UK found that increased adolescent social media use over time was related to lower life satisfaction during specific age periods – 11 to 13 years for women and 14 to fifteen years for boys. It focused on life satisfaction and didn’t assess mental health symptoms.
Deep digging
Our A new study Aim to dig deeper into these trends.
We used data from 1,195 students in Melbourne followed by the researchers. Annually From 12 to 18 years of age.
We examined whether their social media use was related to later mental health problems, and statistically accounted for a spread of individual and family aspects known to influence each social media use and mental health. Therefore, we were in a position to narrow down alternative explanations and strengthen confidence in our findings – despite the fact that we couldn’t prove causation.
We found that young individuals who spent greater than two hours a day on social media had a better risk of developing mental health problems a 12 months later, in comparison with those that used social media for lower than an hour a day. Mental health problems include elevated symptoms of depression and poor health.
Importantly, the hazards of social media use aren’t uniformly experienced in youth.
The strongest effects consistently emerged amongst youth ages 12 to 13 for each girls and boys. Young people aged 14 to 16 years and 17 to 18 12 months olds were almost twice as more likely to have symptoms of depression and anxiety, in addition to poor wellbeing and self-harm.
Overall, the estimated effect sizes were modest. But amongst 12- to 13-year-old girls, social media use of greater than two hours per day was related to about 11 additional cases of major depressive symptoms for each 100 teens.
Even small effects may be meaningful on the population level when large numbers of young individuals are spending greater than two hours a day on social media.
Restrictions based on age alone aren’t enough.
Our study cannot determine the age at which social media becomes “safe.” Nor should any single study inform national laws on age-based restrictions.
However, together with other Researchour study suggests that young adults are particularly vulnerable to the potential harms of social media, with the strongest effects occurring during early adolescence.
As a result, we expect Australia’s social media law to have the best impact on young people’s mental health. But more research is required to substantiate this.
However, age-based restrictions alone are unlikely to eliminate all risks related to adolescent social media use. We found evidence that some risks of mental health problems – namely elevated depressive symptoms – persist for young people as much as 18 years of age.
This highlights the necessity for continued support for older youth.
This includes holding social media platforms accountable for algorithms and features that promote forced engagement and exposure to harmful content. One approach to achieve this is usually recommended by Australia. Digital duty of care correction
This includes improving digital literacy and safety education in schools and supporting parents to assist young people develop healthy online habits.
Changing the routine
We also recently conducted a survey of over 2,000 parents of youngsters aged 0 to 17 about social media access laws in Australia.
The survey found that 59% of fogeys felt that the law supported them in setting rules about social media use. In addition, 39% of fogeys reported that the law had modified their views on when children should first have social media accounts, with age 16 being essentially the most commonly approved (38%).
These findings, which have yet to be published, show that public health policies can influence appropriate or expected behavior.
Although evidence on the impact of Australia’s social media law remains to be emerging, it has already influenced global debates on adolescent social media use.
Age-based social media restrictions at the moment are being debated in lots of countries. And the conversation is quickly shifting from whether social media affects young people’s mental health to when young people could also be most in danger and the way we as a society should respond.