Research finds more teens turning to social media, not parents, for life lessons

More teenagers than ever spend most of their free time in the online worlds of TikTok and Instagram than in the real world with family and friends, according to recent research.

Nearly half of teens aged 13 to 17 say they use the internet “almost constantly,” roughly double the 24% who said the same in 2014-2015, the Pew Research Center found in a survey released Monday. And nearly 1 in 5 say they use YouTube or TikTok “almost constantly.”

The nonprofit research center noted that social media use has remained “relatively stable” since a previous poll in spring 2022, despite warnings from public health officials and government efforts to ban Chinese-owned TikTok. Most teens used smartphones to go online this year, with 95% saying they had one.

“Smartphone ownership is nearly universal among teens of different genders, ages, races and ethnicities, and economic backgrounds,” Pew researchers Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio and Jeffrey Gottfried wrote in a report on the poll.

The findings come as some mental health advocates have blamed social media for fueling an “epidemic of loneliness” that has increased anxiety, depression and suicide risks among young people since the COVID-19 pandemic. Others say social media is more a symptom than the cause of an emerging youth mental health crisis.

“We are seeing a surge of mental health concerns and general fragility in the culture, especially in younger people,” Theresa Sidebotham, an attorney who advises schools and churches on youth suicide prevention, told The Washington Times. “Addictive social media takes them on a downward spiral. This plays out in high anxiety, lack of toughness, increased suicide rates and many other symptoms.”

Social media parent companies Meta, ByteDance, Alphabet and Snap insist they have been scapegoated for these problems. In statements to The Times, some of them touted parental consent guidelines, content moderation policies and algorithms that direct material to age-appropriate audiences as evidence of their concern for teens.

“At YouTube, the privacy, safety, mental health and wellbeing of young people has long been foundational to our work,” said a spokesperson for the video-streaming website owned by Alphabet’s Google. “We recognize the important role that YouTube can play in the life of teens and are deeply committed to ensuring time on the platform is time well spent. In close collaboration with outside experts, we develop age-appropriate experiences and protections for young people and family controls for parents.”

Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Whats App have developed “over 30 tools and resources” to help teens and their parents use the apps responsibly, said a spokesperson for parent company Meta. They include privacy settings and ways for parents to set limits on screen time.

A spokesperson for ByteDance-owned TikTok said the platform automatically limits the screen time of users aged 13-18 to 60 minutes a day, disables notifications for teens late at night, lets parents link accounts with their children, filters out mature content, offers mental health resources and employs “more than 40,000 safety professionals” to censor dangerous or misleading posts.

During pandemic lockdowns of schools and social outlets, screen time for children and teens soared alongside a rise in mental health complaints. Recent reports show both have remained elevated as COVID-19 restrictions fade, with few parents using parental controls to limit their children’s online activity.

In a survey of parents and their adolescent children released Oct. 27, Gallup found U.S. teens spent an average of 4.8 hours a day on at least one of seven social media applications this year: YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WeChat and WhatsApp.

The polling company found that 41% of teens who use these apps for five or more hours a day reported feeling intense anger, anxiety and depression that increased their suicide risks. By comparison, only 23% of those who spent less than two hours daily on the apps experienced those negative emotions.

‘A help or a hindrance’

According to mental health experts, such findings highlight the reality that more adults have outsourced their parenting to virtual babysitters, leaving young people to face anxiety and depression on their own. They point to research showing that children who use the virtual world as a primary source of relationships are more likely to be stunted emotionally.

“There is no substitute for parental involvement,” said Amanda Bacon-Davis, the self-described mother of a “severely anxious” daughter and author of a bestselling children’s book on anxiety. “It takes time and energy to help our kids manage through stress and anxiety.”

In an annual survey of families released Dec. 5, Deseret News found most parents supported government regulation of social media companies amid concerns over online predators, screen time and inappropriate content. Most also took no steps to restrict their children’s social media use.

Deseret found more than 6 in 10 parents allowed their children aged 10-18 to access Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. More than 5 in 10 said their children used Facebook and Snapchat.

Joshua Goldman, a licensed therapist at the national telehealth network Grow Therapy, said many parents also struggle to be emotionally healthy.

“Unfortunately, most parents are in the very difficult position of having to work full-time jobs, face major challenges, and still have to show up for their children to be good role models,” Mr. Goldman said. “Many children end up relying too much on media consumption, which often leads to poor outcomes, as well as school systems, which are mostly antiquated in their approach to fostering curiosity, creativity, and relationship building.”

But not everyone blames YouTube, TikTok and Instagram for these trends. Some experts point out that social media can help young people who use it in careful and limited ways.

“It can be a help or a hindrance,” said John Perry, a sports psychologist at the University of Limerick in Ireland. “If [social media] didn’t exist, people would socialize in other ways that would also likely have a mixed effect on mental health.”

Writing Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, Boston University public health researchers Monica L. Wang and Katherine Togher noted that social media misinformation about vaccines, diseases and diets makes girls and marginalized teens more statistically likely to adopt “harmful behaviors” such as eating disorders.

“However, blanket restriction of social media use among adolescents is not necessarily the answer to these challenges,” they wrote. “Under the proper guardrails and with informed support, social media has enormous potential to facilitate positive connections and enhance rather than undermine mental well-being.”

Other experts say social media addiction points to a deeper problem. They argue that rising numbers of overwhelmed single parents, divorced families and unmarried parents have fueled a breakdown of the traditional structures that once nurtured children.

The growing absence of in-person relationships leads young people to lack empathy and falsely believe they are alone in the universe, said Phil Bradfield, a counselor and clinical director at WinShape Homes, a Christian foster care program started by the founders of Chick-fil-A restaurants.

“Too many adults are asking ‘what is wrong with kids today’ instead of asking ‘what is happening with kids today.’ With the advances of technology and social media, people are exposed to more bad news in one day than previous generations would get in their lifetime,” Mr. Bradfield said. “These advances are outpacing society’s ability to gain wisdom.”