Speaking of Psychology - How social media affects teens’ mental health, with Jacqueline Nesi, PhD

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Congress and state legislators are considering laws to restrict teen social media use, and school districts are suing social media companies for harming kids’ mental health. Are parents and policy makers right to be so concerned? Jacqueline Nesi, PhD, of Brown University, talks about the research on social media and teens’ mental health, whether it’s possible to be addicted to social media, what teens themselves think about social media, and what parents can do to help their kids use social media in a healthy way. For transcripts, links and more information, please visit the Speaking of Psychology Homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lately, the news has been full of headlines about how social media is supposedly causing a mental health crisis among young people. In March, Utah became the first state to prohibit anyone under age 18 from using social media without their parents' consent. Bills in the U.S. House and Senate would do the same if signed into law. Meanwhile, since January, at least a dozen school districts around the country have sued the companies behind social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, accusing them of knowingly harming teens' mental health. Even the U.S. surgeon general has weighed in saying he believes that 13 is too young for kids to start using social media. Amid this surge of interest, psychologists and other researchers are trying to shed light on whether parents and policymakers are right to be so concerned. Is social media really

causing a crisis in teen mental health? Or is it just one factor among many? What age, if any, too young to use social media? How much should parents monitor their kids' social media use? What's the right balance between giving teens privacy and keeping them safe online? And in all the talk about the harms of social media, are we overlooking some of the ways in which it can help teens? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. My guest today is Dr. Jacqueline Nisi, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry

and Behavioral Sciences at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School. She is a psychologist who studies how technology and social media affect teens' social and emotional health, their relationships, and the risk of suicide. She also studies how parents can help by more effectively monitoring their teens' social media use. Dr. Nisi is a member of an APA presidential advisory panel. that recently developed a set of recommendations for healthy social media use in adolescence. And she writes a substack newsletter called Techno sapiens, which aims to share the latest research

on psychology, technology, and parenting. Dr. Nisi, thank you for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. Let's start with the big question. Does research support the idea that social media is causing a mental health crisis among teens and our parents and policymakers right to be alarmed. You're right that this is definitely the big question here, I think. So what I'll say in terms of the evidence is that I think we have some evidence that

social media may be playing a role in the teen mental health crisis. I don't think that that evidence is definitive at this point. So to give a little more context on that, I think we have a lot of correlational studies. So we have a lot of studies that do some version of take a whole bunch of teens, ask them questions about how much they're using social media, and then ask them about symptoms of mental health concerns. And in many of those studies, what we see is a correlation between more social media use and lower mental health. But generally, that correlation is pretty small, although it is statistically significant. And from those studies, we don't know what's causing what. So we don't know if it's the social media use that's causing the mental health.

concerns, vice versa, or if there's some third factor that's contributing to both. We do now, we're starting to have a little bit more causal evidence. So some more experimental type studies that would suggest that social media may be playing a role in contributing to mental health concerns. But again, I think that evidence is really not definitive at this point. And I think that social media, though it is, though it may playing a role is unlikely to be the only cause of this increase in mental health symptoms that we're seeing among youth. Now, there have been headlines recently about how kids are addicted to social media that they can't get off their smartphones even if they want to. What's your take

on that? Is it possible for teens or for that matter adults to be actually addicted to social media? Yeah, the first thing I would say on that is that I certainly think it's the case that there are many teens and many adults that are using social media a lot more than they want to be. So they're using it in a way where they wish they were using it less. It doesn't feel good to them. And I think a small percentage of cases that use could be considered problematic or compulsive where it really is rising to a degree that it's getting in the way interfering with daily functioning. At the same time, I'm hesitant to use the word addiction because I think that the word But addiction has a really specific meaning in the psychology world, in the diagnostic sense,

where it really only refers to a few specific mental health concerns around specifically, you know, substances like alcohol or drugs. And then at least in the U.S., there's one behavioral addiction that's sort of officially classified, which would be problematic gambling. But at this point, when it comes to social media, we really don't have the evidence that we can call this sort of compulsive or problematic use of social media a true addiction, because it functions a little bit differently. And because in many cases, you know, when we talk about social media,

we're thinking about both some benefits and some risks. So there's some good stuff happening on social media as well as the bad stuff. And so it's a little tough to use this word addiction when we know that, you know, some of what's happening online can actually be really helpful and protective and social. for kids and adults. So I do think that there are cases where it's being used in problematic ways that are certainly interfering, whether to use the term addiction. I think at this point I would say is probably not the right term to be using. Well, let me ask you then the question around age and giving kids access to social media. Is it possible to pick a particular age and say, that's too young or that's the right age? Or is it different for different kids? I wish it was the case that we could just pick a certain age and say, this is the age that, you know, social media stops being problematic or this is the age where it's perfectly safe. But unfortunately, I just don't think that the research would support that.

And the research probably doesn't support that on really any issue. It's really hard to pick a specific age for anything because teens and kids are so different in terms of the pace of their development, in terms of the challenges they're running in. to their strengths, their vulnerabilities. And so I do think we can say generally that for younger adolescents, so or maybe earlier teens, late preteens, that those younger youth tend to run into more of the negative aspects of social media. So they do tend to encounter more of the risks of social media, at least based on the evidence we have so far,

which would suggest that it can make sense to wait on the internet, of social media. As things currently stand, age 13 is the sort of legal age in the U.S. where kids are allowed to start getting on social media. Of course, we know that many are getting on earlier than that. And there is some question now about whether that age should be increased. I don't think we can say for sure whether, again, there's a specific age that it should be increased to or whether 13 is the right age.

But I will say that in general, when kids are on the younger end of the adolescent range. They do tend to run into more risks. So there's some evidence to suggest that waiting makes sense. You've worked on a survey that's asked teens themselves what they think of social media. Do teens think that social media is harming their mental health? Do they think that there should be changes or restrictions put on it? Yeah. So, yeah, so I had the opportunity to work with Common Sense Media, which is a large nonprofit in the U.S. focused on youth media use. And we did a large national survey of about 1,400 adolescent girls, so ages 11 to 15. And in that survey, we asked them, as you said, what, you know, what they think of social media.

So we really wanted to sort of get their voices into this conversation that so many of us are having. And what they said was, in general, that it's a mixed bag for them. So overall, actually, teens were more likely to say that overall social media has, had mostly positive impact on people of their age versus negative. But at the same time, there was a good, depending on the platform, about a fifth to a quarter of those girls who said that social media had had a mostly negative impact on people of their age. So they're seeing, they're sort of seeing, I think, both the risks and the benefits of social media. They also did have suggestions when we asked them about how they would change platforms to make them better

for teens' well-being. And for the most part, those focused on, on issues of the content that they were seeing. So making the content more appropriate for them, making it more positive, making sure that it was appropriate for their age. Also, they had some to say about privacy and sort of safety on the platforms, making sure that adults couldn't contact them.

They had some concerns about location sharing, so making their locations public on platforms. So generally, I think they, teens were in favor of some changes to social media sites and those generally focused on, I would say, safety and content, appropriateness of content. So it sounds like they're pretty aware of what some of the risks are, which is good, right? I mean, we want them to be aware of those things. Definitely, yeah.

You know, I think they are. I think that in general, you know, teens are the ones that are using these platforms the most, and they're really at the center of this conversation that we're having. and I think that they know. They have a good sense of sort of where things are, you know, where these platforms are sort of working and what they love about them and then what things are more risky and that they would like to be different. So we know a fair amount about social media sites that might be harmful to teens' mental health,

such as those that glamorize super thinness or self-harm. But what are some of the healthy sites where kids could and should be going. Yeah. So I think that this really, kids see a lot, I think, of both the benefits and risks across platforms. So it's really hard to say, you know, that maybe one site is better than another in terms of effects on mental health or in terms of the types of content even that they're going to be coming across. But I will say that we know there are a number of benefits to social media use in spite of the risk. So some of the good things that kids might be encountering would be things like connecting with friends or meeting new friends, getting social support.

In many cases, sort of exploring identities or discovering new interests and learning about things they may have not known before. In some cases, things like civic engagement and getting involved in issues they care about. I think all of those are certainly benefits that teens themselves report and that we see across platforms. So, Dr. Nisi, you were part of a specially appointed panel at the APA that looked at the effect of social media on kids in order to make some recommendations for how best to use the platforms. And one of the recommendations that stood out for me was the notion that kids need to be trained in media literacy, especially before parents and caregivers handover smartphones, tablets, you know, other smart technologies. how can parents make sure their kids are getting this training and what should it entail?

That's a great question. And I think, yeah, so this was one of the big recommendations that, you know, we made as part of this panel. And I think that, you know, this can't, it can't all be on parents is the first thing I'll say. I think that the effort to educate young people and teens in particular about social media really has to come from multiple places. So I think it has to be sort of an overall societal focus. And that's going to include things like education in schools as well. But certainly there are things I think that parents can be doing at home to make sure that their kids are learning about how to use social media safely. So one thing I'll say is that I think that having a sort of gradual introduction to social media is important.

So oftentimes kids will look at their first phones. and many parents feel that they, at that same time, they have to give them access to everything that the phone can offer. And in many cases, I think it might make sense to wait, actually, on introducing social media after a child has had some time to adjust to how they might, you know, communicate safely and how they might use the phone in ways that are effective and healthy. And then as they start using social media,

taking, again, sort of a gradual approach with at first having, you know, more sort of rules and restrictions in place, limits on what they can do, what they can access, how much time they can spend, who they can talk to, and over time sort of gradually, gradually lessening those as they learn more responsibility online. Also earlier on having more monitoring. So just, you know, paying sort closer attention to what young people are doing on social media. For some families that might, you know, look like more sort of direct monitoring. So looking at sitting down with a child and actually looking at what they're doing on social media, for some it's going to be maybe a little bit more around having just a lot of open

conversations about what's happening on social media. But generally sort of making sure that they're not going through this alone, that they have somebody to talk to, they can come to when they run into things that they don't understand online, and that they have some amount of sort of guardrails in place to make sure that they're not running into, or that they're running into fewer of the risk that we might see. Now, how can parents balance the need to keep on top of the things that we're just talking about and giving teens some space and privacy? And should parents know, for example, all of their child's passwords,

Should they be reading their kids' texts? I mean, where are the parameters? Yeah, this is a really tricky issue. And I think it's one that so many parents run into and sort of wonder what to do about. I think there's opposing opinions on how to handle this because, of course, we want to protect teens' privacy and independence. And that's a really important piece of the adolescent period. And at the same time, we do want to keep them safe and protected from some of the risks that are out there. as much as we can. So the first thing I'll say is that I think that no matter what parents decide

to do around this, I think there is a question of how it is done that is maybe more important. And I think the research would support what would be called autonomy supportive styles of parenting, which basically means that we want to be, even if we're putting limits in place, even if we're having really high expectations or strict rules, we still want to be, supporting teens' feelings of autonomy and independence. And so the ways that parents can do that are with things like making sure they always provide rationale for any rules or limits that they have in place. So why is this important?

Why are they doing this? Soliciting their teen's opinion on the types of things that teens think are important about their use of social media, listening to them, having open conversations. All of these things, I think, are really crucial to helping teens. teens feel that their autonomy is being supported, even when we have these kind of rules or this kind of monitoring that we might be doing in place. Related to that, I think we always want it to be a conversation. So I think that what we definitely don't want is spying. So that tends to backfire in many cases. So looking at a teen's phone when they didn't know that

was going to be happening, unless, of course, it's an emergency of some kind. But I think, you know, having this be an open conversation that this is what we're going to be doing, we're going to be, you know, checking in on what's happening in your life on social media, and your life online, we're going to be doing it this frequently. And here are the reasons why. I think that can really go a long way. So is it something that parents should be doing in a more casual way, for example, you're making dinner and kids sitting at the table and, you know, he's over there texting and you just say,

So hey, bud, who are you texting right now? What are you talking about? Does that work? Is that one way of, you know, keeping a little bit of a tab on what your child is up to? Yeah, I think that's one great, great way to go about it. So having, you know, having these frequent conversations that are more casual and that are more, you know, it doesn't always have to be like a sit down where you're staring at each other and it's this big thing. I think having it be more casual can be great. Honestly, I think that the decisions that families make about how to handle monitoring like this are really family-specific and really child-specific. So depending on a child's age, you know, younger kids are going to need more monitoring than older. Their maturity, their what they've shown you in terms of their history and, you know, their responsibility, their willingness to follow the rules, how open they are with you about what they're encountering. All those things, I think, are going to play.

a role and ultimately how this happens. But there are also a lot of options for for how to do this kind of monitoring. So again, some of it is just asking lots of questions, keeping open to conversation. Some of it might be something like, you know, actually doing, you know, spot checks as a phone at certain intervals that you agree on in advance. You could do using social media together with your child could be a great way to get them to share sort of what they're up to, what they're interested in. And then there's also more sort of technical tools that some families find work as kind of one aspect of their overall monitoring plans. So you can, so there are things like on iPhone, family sharing, and there's a similar thing on Android, which basically allows you to pair your phones together and between parent and the child. And then you can do things like set limits on time and the type of content they can access.

And there are also other tools that allow for some amount of monitoring, things like Bark, which is a type of software that sort of allows you to, it alerts you to potential concerning activity that is occurring on your child's device. So those things work for some families. I don't think those things are, you know, necessary for every family. But for some, I think that's one piece of the plan that works for them. Have you found that there is an optimal amount of time that young people, should spend each day on social media? And how can parents and even kids themselves know when they're

spending too much time? I don't think that there's a specific number we can necessarily point to. And I think we used to, so in terms of, you know, screen time generally and how much time to spend on devices, you know, there used to be recommendations around a specific number of hours per day for a teen. That sort of has been done away with now because I think we know. know that there is, that devices are just such a huge piece of our everyday lives. And for a young person, that's often, you know, they're using it for schoolwork. They're using it for communication. They're using it for entertainment. And it can be hard to actually set a specific time on that. What I will say is that I think it is really important, as you said, that teens and families are

aware of when they feel like they are spending too much time on the device. So I think, things to be looking out for are if it feels like the device is really getting in the way of other healthy activities. So the main thing I'll say there is sleep. I think sleep is we know absolutely crucial for mental health, for physical health, and we know that devices and social media can get in the way of that. So if social media is getting the way of sleep, that's certainly a sign that there needs to be a change. Other things, like, you know, exercise, getting outside, in-person kind of social interactions. I think a good way to think about sort of social media use and screen time for entertainment

is thinking about all the other pieces of the day that are really important to be fitting in for health. So, you know, sleep, healthy eating, exercise, seeing friends. And then when there's time after those things, that can be used for social media use. But I think trying to make sure that all those things are happening first is a good way to go about it if possible. Now, we at APA recently conducted some focus groups with parents and teens asking them about social media. And we found that while they shared some concerns about social media use, that parents were more worried about their kids being bullied online while the kids were concerned about how social media use might affect their futures and other aspects of their lives. Do those findings jive with what you've been learning in your research? That's really interesting.

Yeah, I think that I certainly hear a lot of concerns for parents and teens about making mistakes online that could affect whether it's future college acceptance or employment prospects or whatever it might be. I do think that that is certainly a concern. And in terms of bullying, yeah, I think that, you know, the data we have from the cyberbullying research center would suggest that somewhere around a quarter of teens have been, say they've been cyber bullied at some point in their lives. So it's certainly somewhat common. And, you know, I do think it's something that we need to be looking out for. And in both cases, that we need to be sort of educating teens about how.

they can handle these issues when they arise. A lot of people are concerned with how social media is affecting girls in particular. There was a study this spring finding that the rates of mental illness had increased among teenage girls. Is there any evidence that girls and boys use social media differently or that it's more harmful to girls than to boys? Yeah. So in general, in terms of the general question about mental health, concerns.

You know, we know that many mental health concerns are more common among teen girls and they are among teen boys, so things like depression and anxiety. We know that actually rates of suicide, unfortunately, are higher among boys than they are among girls. But we also know that in the past 10 to 15 years, the rate of increase of each of those concerns has been more steep among girls than among boys. So it's on a relative basis, it's increased more among girls in general. In terms of the issue of social media specifically, I don't think the research is quite settled yet on actually if it is worse for boys or for girls. I think we have some evidence that there may be things that are worse for girls. So we know obviously that in our culture, in our society, that generally girls are socialized to, you have more concerns about their appearance and to have more focus on what they look like

and their bodies. And all of that, of course, can play out on social media in ways that are problematic. We also know that in some cases, girls may have more sort of negative reactions to negative events that happen on social media. So respond with stronger emotions. But overall, I actually don't think we know. that social media is worse for girls. I think there are many concerns that boys run into as well online, and I think that's still really an open question.

What do you think of these new laws to ban or restrict social media for teens like the one I mentioned in Utah? Are these a good idea? Are they even feasible to enforce? The research on social media and teens' mental health in some ways, at this point, can only take us so far in terms of knowing what to actually do policy-wise. And so there's some of these questions that are really, I think, policy questions more so than research questions, at least from the research we have right now. I will say that I do think that we need to do something about social media use. As it currently stands, there really is no or very minimal kind of regulation around how social media platforms can be used by teens and the type of content

they can be shown and the types of features that can be present. So I do think that some amount of change does make sense. Specifically, how to do that is obviously a very tricky question. But I think that, you know, the one thing I'll say is that I think in general, giving teens more control and more options in terms of their social media use makes a lot of sense to be. So having them have more control over the types of content that they see, over, you know, the types of people who are able to contact them on social media, you know, whether they have features like auto play, where a video automatically plays one after another,

whether those types of things are turned on, whether people can send them private messages, all of these things, I think that having more control over that and more options for teens makes a lot of sense to me. The question of whether they're feasible to enforce some of these laws, that is one I think that is, again, probably more of a policy question than I can necessarily answer. But I do think that some of these will be pretty challenging to enforce. What about the responsibility faced by the companies that are created?

these platforms, what would you like to see from them? Yeah. So I think that the, as I said, I think the main thing is just providing users with more control and more options over their experience on platforms. You know, I think that there are certain things, too, that are sort of, in some ways, feel like low-hanging fruit. So, you know, when young people are being shown really problematic types of content, like content that's promoting harmful behaviors like eating disorders and that's promoting self-harm

or suicide. These are things that obviously I think we can all agree young people should not be seeing on social media platforms. So I think there are changes like that where really protecting youth from being exposed to content that they shouldn't be exposed to, I think is an important first step and it's a challenging issue to tackle. But I think it's one that these companies really do need to get right. And I think that many of them are taking steps in that direction. But so far, I think we can see that it likely has not been enough. So what are the next big research questions that you want answered in this arena? And what are you working on right now? Yeah. So I right now am really interested in this question of the way that we talk about social media and the way that we,

as a society, the way that we sort of message around social media to young people. So, you know, I think right now there is this very negative perception of social media. And I think for good reason, there are many, we know there are many risks and many challenges to it. But I think a lot of what young people are hearing sort of day in and day out from their parents and their teachers and from the news is very much along the lines of, you know, social media is bad for you. And if you use it, it's going to have a negative impact on your mental health. And I think that that, I'm really interested right now on this question of like, how is that actually impacting teens? How is it impacting the way that they use social media? Is it causing them to use it in ways where they sort of feel they don't have any choice?

They don't have, there's nothing they can do to make it sort of a healthier experience for them? Is it that, you know, in turn, then contributing actually to worse outcomes down the road. And I think that we need more research on that, on just how should we talk about this with young people? How can we sort of realistically help them understand the risks and the concerns when it comes to social media while also helping them figure out how to use it in ways that are healthier and that will sort of promote their mental health instead of being a detriment to their mental health? Well, Dr. Nisi, I want to thank you for joining me. me today. This has been really interesting. I appreciate you're joining me and the work that you're

doing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. You can find previous episodes of speaking of psychology on our website at www.combeatingof psychology.org or on Apple, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speaking of psychology at APA.org. Speaking of psychology is produced by Lee Wyateman. Our sound editor is Chris Kondayan. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.