A majority of teenagers use YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to a newly published survey from the Pew Research Center.
Teens are increasingly connected to the digital world, with 96% saying they’re online daily and nearly half saying they’re online almost constantly.
A decade ago, just a quarter of teens were online almost constantly.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has sounded the alarm that social media can be a driver of the “national youth mental health crisis,” even calling for warning labels on social media apps.
“So, social media certainly affects youth mental health,” said Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth, the chief medical officer for The Jed Foundation, an organization focused on mental health for teens and young adults. “But exactly how and for which young people in what ways is really complicated.”
We might know more about the effects of social media use if the companies were more transparent with their algorithms, Erickson-Schroth said.
“We don’t have access to the outputs that they’re seeing in terms of how it’s affecting their users,” she said.
People’s lives changed drastically about 15 years ago “when the internet met the phone,” she said.
The Pew Research Center surveyed teens ages 13 to 17 this fall on their social media and internet usage. Every teen who took part in the survey has known nothing but a world with the internet always at their fingertips.
The survey found 90% of teens use YouTube. That’s the most popular social media site for teens. Over half use TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.
Girls are more likely than boys to say they use TikTok almost constantly. Boys are more likely than girls to use YouTube almost constantly.
Facebook, once the king of social media sites for teens, is now used by just around a third of teens. Over 70% of teens used Facebook a decade ago.
“TikTok’s the one that I think if you’re a parent, you might have the most concerns with of the content they’re consuming and the endless stream of content,” said Andrew Selepak, a social media expert who teaches at the University of Florida.
Selepak said TikTok is “so algorithmic-based that it can put you down a rabbit hole of content.” And its content can encourage negative behaviors, he said.
YouTube has an algorithm, but users tend to consume more content on YouTube that they purposely sought out. And there’s more educational content on YouTube, Selepak said.
“While there are videos on there of people who are kind of clout-chasing and engaging in negative behavior, I think that’s just a smaller portion of the videos that are on YouTube,” he said.
Selepak said Instagram tends to show users more content from the people they follow, which can be friends and family. He said that’s changing a bit with Instagram pushing more Reels, short videos, into people’s timelines, and parents likely don’t need to be overly concerned about what their teens are seeing on Snapchat.
There are so many ads interlaced with the public content on Snapchat that it is mostly used as a private messaging platform for teens and their friends.
Erickson-Schroth said there are positives in social media for teens. She said some teens can find community and connection online,
“Especially if they’re young people who don’t have that kind of community in real life. That might be LGBTQ young people, that might be youth of color who live in areas where they don’t have as much access to other young people who they can identify with.”
She said teens use social media to keep in touch with family members or learn about new topics. But there are also negatives. Information overload can be a problem, Erickson-Schroth said.
“We’re taking in as much information in one day as our ancestors did in an entire lifetime,” she said.
Teens are inundated with tragic news online, they can be exposed to cyberbullying, and teen girls especially can be affected by unhealthy social comparisons with the people they see in social media posts.
Social media hijacks our reward systems, Erickson-Schroth said.
“As human beings, we need social support, and we need reassurance,” she said. “Algorithms are taking advantage of that and keeping us online for longer and engaging in content, even if it’s not content that makes us feel good.”
Teens can let social media take the place of real-world, in-person connections if they’re not careful.
Can parents really police their children’s social media use?
“This is something that we have to come together as a society to address, because one person trying to fight the tide can be very difficult,” Erickson-Schroth said.
For parents, though, talking to their children about their experiences is a good place to start. Ask what social media apps they use and how those make them feel.
“Spend time together and play around on the apps and the platforms and get to know them,” Erickson-Schroth said. “And engage with them, so that you know what the young people in your life are using.”
If teens are spending all night scrolling on social media, they might not be getting enough sleep. Sleep-deprived teens are at increased risk for depression, anxiety and difficulty in school, Erickson-Schroth said.
Have a news tip? Contact Cory Smith at corysmith@sbgtv.com or at x.com/Cory_L_Smith. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.