The risks and benefits of social media for teenagers

Tik­Tok, Ins­ta­gram and Snap­chat are now part of the dai­ly lives of 10–24-year-olds, whe­ther it’s to fol­low the lives of influen­cers, watch videos or send mes­sages to each other. Social net­works are often pre­sen­ted as a threat to the well-being of tee­na­gers. For some years now, these plat­forms and their reper­cus­sions have been the sub­ject of nume­rous scien­ti­fic stu­dies, wide­ly repor­ted in the media. 

Recent­ly, neu­ros­cien­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Caro­li­na¹ in the Uni­ted States sho­wed that cog­ni­tive changes were taking place in the brains of tee­na­gers who spend a lot of time on social net­works. They seem to deve­lop a heigh­te­ned sen­si­ti­vi­ty to social rewards, and the­re­fore to the com­ments and opi­nions of those around them. The authors them­selves qua­li­fy these results, sta­ting that they do not know whe­ther this effect is posi­tive or nega­tive. Fur­ther­more, since ado­les­cence is a per­iod when social rela­tion­ships deve­lop, these cog­ni­tive changes could be explai­ned by other fac­tors, such as the deve­lop­ment of links with peers. 

Thou­sands of other stu­dies have exa­mi­ned the rela­tion­ship bet­ween tee­na­gers and social net­works. Lui­sa Fas­si, a doc­to­ral student in psy­chia­try, is wor­king on this issue in the MRC Cog­ni­tion and Brain Sciences Unit at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty in the UK. As part of a sys­te­ma­tic review, she ana­ly­sed around 5,000 stu­dies to deter­mine whe­ther digi­tal plat­forms influen­ced the men­tal health of ado­les­cents. For the spe­cia­list, the cur­rent state of research does not yet pro­vide a clear answer.

What is cer­tain, for the time being, is that tee­na­gers are not doing as well as they used to. “The men­tal health of tee­na­gers has been decli­ning for some years now. Com­pa­red with pre­vious gene­ra­tions, they seem to have more pro­blems such as anxie­ty, depres­sion and eating disor­ders”, says Lui­sa Fas­si. There has also been an increase in the sui­cide rate, par­ti­cu­lar­ly among girls. Admis­sions to emer­gen­cy depart­ments for sui­cide attempts rose by more than 40% in 2021 com­pa­red with the pre­vious three years, accor­ding to data from San­té Publique France publi­shed by Libé­ra­tion². 

Social net­works are often pre­sen­ted as one of the expla­na­tions, or even the real cause, of this malaise. In 2015, Jean Twenge, an Ame­ri­can psy­cho­lo­gist, noted that tee­na­gers were increa­sin­gly suf­fe­ring from lone­li­ness and depres­sion, and that this dete­rio­ra­tion in their men­tal health was direct­ly lin­ked to the wides­pread use of smart­phones and social net­works. Since then, there seems to be a consen­sus in the media and among poli­ti­cians about the harm­ful influence of these plat­forms. Last Decem­ber, Emma­nuel Macron des­cri­bed the Chi­nese appli­ca­tion Tik­Tok as “the num­ber one [psy­cho­lo­gi­cal] dis­rup­ter” for chil­dren and teenagers. 

For Lui­sa Fas­si, “there has been a lot of debate on this issue over the last few years, and the sub­ject has been exten­si­ve­ly stu­died, but we don’t have enough evi­dence to say that social net­works are the main expla­na­tion for the decline in young peo­ple’s men­tal health. We are living in a time of cri­sis : tee­na­gers are facing increa­sing insta­bi­li­ty in the eco­no­my, at work, in the cli­mate, etc. It’s pro­ba­bly a mul­ti-fac­to­rial phe­no­me­non.” Accor­ding to her research, stu­dies show rather hete­ro­ge­neous results, with posi­tive, nega­tive, weak, and strong links. “This dis­cre­pan­cy bet­ween the state of scien­ti­fic know­ledge and the public’s intui­tion is part­ly due to the misin­ter­pre­ta­tion of cer­tain cor­re­la­tio­nal evi­dence, which shows an asso­cia­tion and is pre­sen­ted as a cau­sal link,” she explains.

If we’re fee­ling more anxious, we’re going to spend more time on or TikTok.

Seve­ral stu­dies have shown an asso­cia­tion bet­ween time spent on social net­wor­king sites and men­tal health. The more time tee­na­gers spend on social net­wor­king sites, the worse they feel. Anxie­ty, depres­sion, and mood swings are on the rise. This does not mean, howe­ver, that the appli­ca­tions are direct­ly res­pon­sible for this dete­rio­ra­tion. “The link can go either way : if you feel more anxious, you’ll spend more time on Ins­ta­gram or Tik­Tok,” explains Lui­sa Fas­si. Conver­se­ly, stu­dies that look at the phe­no­me­non over time show more hete­ro­ge­neous results, with impacts on cer­tain groups of tee­na­gers. Girls are more nega­ti­ve­ly affec­ted by social net­works than boys. Beyond gen­der, age also plays a role. A stu­dy publi­shed in Nature in 2022³ ana­ly­sed the rela­tion­ship bet­ween time spent using plat­forms and fee­lings of satis­fac­tion in life, for 17,000 people aged bet­ween 10 and 21. The time of grea­test sen­si­ti­vi­ty for both gen­ders was 19, but for boys alone it was 14–15. For girls, this per­iod is bet­ween 11 and 13.

“Social net­works are not the only thing that can easi­ly be tes­ted in a stu­dy. There are many com­po­nents, which need to be ana­ly­sed sepa­ra­te­ly to unders­tand their impact. So, the­re’s the time spent on it, but also the type of content and acti­vi­ties to which we are expo­sed”, says Lui­sa Fas­si. A wide range of content coexists on appli­ca­tions such as Ins­ta­gram, Face­book, Tik­Tok and Snap­chat. You can look at your friends’ pho­tos, chat by mes­sage, watch videos, and so on. The most popu­lar acti­vi­ty among 11–18-year-olds is chat­ting with friends or fami­ly, accor­ding to a sur­vey by the Géné­ra­tion Numé­rique asso­cia­tion. And it is exact­ly this type of acti­vi­ty that is asso­cia­ted with bet­ter men­tal health, accor­ding to the stu­dies ana­ly­sed by the doc­to­ral student. Conver­se­ly, cyber-bul­lying or expo­sure to offen­sive content has a nega­tive impact on tee­na­gers’ men­tal health.

So, are social net­works good or bad for young peo­ple’s morale ? When asked by parents or poli­ti­cians, Lui­sa Fas­si uses this meta­phor : “Is drin­king bad ? Are we tal­king about water or alco­hol, and in what quan­ti­ties ? Too much water can be dan­ge­rous for our bodies”. This is a dif­fi­cult ques­tion, because social net­works are com­plex plat­forms with mul­tiple uses and content. Their busi­ness model is based on algo­rithms and the crea­tion of an indi­vi­dua­li­sed expe­rience to cap­ture and hold atten­tion. The content on offer is tai­lo­red to the tastes, pas­sions, and habits of each indi­vi­dual, which makes research into this sub­ject more com­pli­ca­ted. Fur­ther­more, resear­chers do not have access to data direct­ly from the plat­forms, which could pro­vide a wealth of pre­cise and use­ful infor­ma­tion on the time spent, acti­vi­ties under­ta­ken, types of content, etc. Most stu­dies are based on self-decla­ra­tion by par­ti­ci­pants, and the rea­li­ty can some­times dif­fer from the data sha­red by individuals.

“It’s not like a drug, for which we can launch a cli­ni­cal trial and know the effects. We need more evi­dence and cumu­la­tive data”, says Lui­sa Fas­si. When will we have these ans­wers ? “The pace of research deve­lop­ment is very high. I hope that in five years’ time, we will have clea­rer ans­wers to inform poli­cy­ma­kers and guide regu­la­tions. Howe­ver, even when we have pre­cise ans­wers, they will most like­ly be nuan­ced and contra­dic­to­ry, with dif­ferent effects for dif­ferent groups, depen­ding on the men­tal his­to­ry of ado­les­cents, their age, gen­der, region of ori­gin, etc.”

Sirine Azouaoui