Getting serious about social media and mental health
Thoughts on disturbing revelations about social media's impact on young minds
I have a confession to make: Like 40% of American adults, I use Instagram. It’s a fun and easy platform for sharing memories and keeping up with friends. Unlike Twitter, which is 99.9% work related for me, Instagram is a place I post pictures of my kids to share with others since I quit Facebook years ago (yes, I know Facebook owns Instagram). But the more I have been reading recently, the harder it is to deny that the social media giant is placing many of us—and most especially young people—on the wrong course.
Just this past week, for example, The Wall Street Journal broke one of the most important mental health stories of the year. It’s about how toxic Instagram is for teen girls’ mental health, how Facebook, its parent company, is well aware of this problem, and how they’ve publicly told a different story than the one they’ve shared internally. Basically, they mislead the public and put profits over people – not the first or last time this will happen, but still a stunning finding.
As someone who regularly tracks mental health data, I’ve come to understand that it’s important not to jump to conclusions when it comes to research. The findings of academic papers and policy reports sometimes represent preliminary findings that often need to be replicated. And it’s always helpful to ask what else could account for certain outcomes besides a given correlation.
But every once in a while, a report comes along that is both alarming in its content and unambiguous in its findings—and that’s the case here. The Journal’s reporting is clear and damning, and it’s the kind of story that should force us to seriously reevaluate our approach to the use of social media. That’s what this post is about.
The key findings of the report, based on Facebook’s internal documents, are heartbreaking. They include that nearly a third of teenage girls said the platform made negative feelings they had about their bodies worse; that among teens reporting suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram; that among those who have felt unattractive in the past month, more than 40% trace that feeling to Instagram; and that teens—unprompted—blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.
There is simply no way of getting around how bad this data is and, worse, how disturbing it is that Facebook kept this information from the public.
Now, it’s true that plenty of research has already suggested that, despite the ways in which it does connect us, social media can have detrimental effects on mental health and social engagement, especially for young people. Previous studies have shown that young people are suffering from greater rates of depression and anxiety than older generations, and that those mental health challenges are linked to increased use of social media and excessive screen time.
The above image from Jean Twenge’s article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
However, those studies haven’t come from the social media companies themselves. That’s what makes this internal research all the more important: It confirms what some outsiders have suspected but haven’t been able to argue with complete confidence.
While some benefits flow from the greater connectivity provided by social media platforms, the hard truth of the matter is that the good is wrapped up in a lot of bad, and no one seems willing to say that. Does me being able to see pictures of my nephew outweigh the inadequacy I feel seeing the amazing vacations my friends are taking their families on while I’m stuck working another long day?
That’s the first point I want to make—that as parents, as policymakers, and as a society, we need to be willing to acknowledge that social media can be deeply harmful for young minds. We’re all looking for acceptance and approval from peers, but this is especially true for digital natives. And if we allow young people to constantly compare themselves to the overly-filtered lives of influencers, it shouldn’t surprise us when the feelings captured by Facebook’s data are the end result.
The second point I want to make is about accountability. We now know that Facebook is aware of the harm it can do to impressionable young people’s mental health. What are they going to do about it? I believe that all social media platforms - including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter - need greater accountability, given the enormous influence they have over our health and well-being. They know everything about us yet we know nothing about them (or what they know about us). Perhaps a first step towards accountability is better transparency.
The crux of the problem, as the WSJ article details, is that Instagram depends on maximizing user engagement in order to generate its more than $100 billion in annual revenue. How can we encourage accountability when the well-being of young minds is in open conflict with a profit motive?
That’s the conversation we need to have in a more robust way at every level of society. I processed some of my own thinking about this, including how I might manage this with my kids in a very public way, live on Cheddar News. My takeaway is that there’s a lot we can do as parents as well as a society to address the pros and cons of social media.
At the end of the day, we are all hungry for meaningful connection with others. If anything, that’s what The Journal’s reporting makes clear - that’s the major “pro” in social media. And in moderation, there may be a role for social media to play in fostering that connection. Our brains are wired for social connection. But for now, we need to be fully honest about how social media platforms are impacting mental health, and about the need for greater accountability for the companies that have so much power over our young people.
That’s a conversation I’m looking forward to starting in earnest, and one that I’d like to see social media companies get serious about joining themselves. After all, there’s simply too much at stake for them not to.
Getting serious about social media and mental health
This deeply important post, insight, and truth telling reverberates a harsh chord within me on a mess o levels. On a personal note I will abscond with a phrase from teen world "Compare and despair". Oh boy do I. Widowed, isolated, no fam, and at times circling the emotional bowl I see happy couples, fans, cool trips, and videos that I'm clueless how to make. It feels(is) harmful to me. Yet I know at the heart of humanity is connection to others. So ergo: I share, hit likes, comment and try and be a good SM pal. I blunt, to a point, riding the struggle bus for days by being a good pal to my squad.
And there is this. I'm a volunteer crisis counselor. In my work I've texted with many many hundred of teens who are in abject pain with eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, and more. The work we do to bring some degree of calm and comfort and support to these CHILDREN is hard, emotionally crushing, and saps your very soul. I'm able to get them to some calm, some hope, some feeling better. Yet it's only extinguishing a sofa on fire. Their emotional house is engulfed in scorching flames of hurt which will take years to stop.
Craven FB Instagram needs to pay companies doing crisis work and companies treating teens for mental health issues. Further they need to give every jr. high and high school an annual payment for guidance counselors. If you haven't guess I am pissed. I see and hear the pain and self destruction SM does to teens. We all should be angry. Sorry to rant. This post is so important.
Reading this, and then Mark's comment, has me thinking a whole array of things.
First, I'm glad I stopped using both FB and Insta - since they're owned by the same company, who I hate/loathe/despise for what they've done to humanity, globally, in the name of "engagement" [spoiler: ad $$], with zero thought given to the human lives impacted negatively, and even ended, through actions taken IRL that were spurred by virtual actions/content on Facebook.
However, being a human, I miss connection with my other humans that Signal, email, and Twitter can't really fill in during a pandemic, when we're all justifiably hiding out in our own caves. Which I still am, TYVM #MetsParty, although I did travel to a conference in Boston last week. TYVM vaccines, masks, Delta Airlines' vax/mask mandates, and whoever makes hand sanitizer. So I saw people, but I still miss that feeling of connection across the miles that only happens on platforms like .... FB and Insta.
The internet wasn't created to become a giant ad platform that makes big bank by setting us in opposition to each other, but that's what's happened. Dunno if it's late-stage (terminal?) capitalism, just plain human nature, a combination of the two, or the front end of a tech-driven extinction event. Hard to find the upside to much of what passes for "modern life," beyond the ability to converse and work with other humans across the globe, which I do on the daily, and for which I am grateful.
All of which is to say "amen" and "amen to what Mark said." And that I'm part of a group of people actively fighting to hold FB accountable for their insouciant greed. They really don't GAF about people, other than (maybe) their shareholders.