Social Media: An Agent of Affliction in Adolescents - Part 2
Social Media: An Agent of Affliction in Adolescents - Part 2
The mental health crisis plaguing US started between 2010-2012, and has impacted young female cohorts more than any demographic.
Part 2/3
As covered in part one of this series titled, Social Media: An Agent of Affliction in Adolescents—Part 1, social media apps have been designed to form patterns of habitual behavior. This is done using many of the notification systems in a manner consistent with behavioral enforcement techniques, similar to those used in video lottery machines. The efficacy of these software models are the foundation for the “Attention Economy” that finds profitability in ad-revenue, as well as data collection which is sold to the highest bidder. Much of this was occurring without the informed consent of their users, thus bringing into question the intent and ethics of these multi-billion dollar companies.
For the second part of this three part series, you will hopefully gain some insight into the decades of research that has gone into assessing mental well-being in adolescents, and whether there is data compelling enough to draw a causal relationship between social media use and the steady decrease in mental health.
The Conclusion from one of the publications from After Babel was included to make it abundantly clear that there is no consensus on whether there is a causal relationship between the mental health epidemic and the rise of social media. While there is ample evidence that shows a strong correlation, After Babel does well to offer counter points and research with conclusions that counter their claims of a causal relationship.
I began this essay by taking the burden of proof upon myself. Given the long history of tech panics, you should come to this question and this blog with skepticism. Your default assumption should be the null hypothesis so often asserted by my critics: this is just one more unjustified freak-out by older people about “kids these days.”
But as I have shown in this post, the evidence that this time is different is very strong. In 2010 there was little sign of any problem, in any of the long-running nationally representative datasets (with the possible exception of suicide for young teen boys). By 2015––when Greg Lukianoff and I wrote our essay The Coddling of the American Mind––teen mental health was a 5 alarm fire, according to all the datasets that Jean Twenge and I can find. The kids are not alright.
Mental Health Epidemic Origins Dates Back to 2010-2012
Something persistently consequential was introduced between 2010 and 2012 that acted as a catalyst for an unprecedented increase in mental illness in youth.
Mental disorders and their subsequent symptoms including major depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation have become increasingly common in adolescents in Western Nations.
This is an observable phenomena that most people would agree is something palatable, not only within their own lives, but within the lives of those around them as well. There are many questions that will need to be answered going forward. However, we now have access to countless studies that have shown there is a link between excessive social media usage and increases is mental illness in adolescents, but more specifically young girls. Whether that link is causal will be touched on.
All of this research points to at minimum, a strong correlation between social media use and increases in mental health problems including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Whether it is the leading cause or not, it is a major contributing factor and parents should heed these insights. It’s much easier to protect your children from the consequences of youths access to these platforms than ever before. It’s also much more difficult to combat the social pressures kids face amongst their peers when trying to prevent them from engaging with social media.
As discussed in the part 1, simply decreasing their exposure to 30 minutes a day can be a great tool to negating the negative effects, if restricting their access entirely is too difficult.
The United States
Rates of major depressive episodes increase in Gen Z and Millennials
Figure 1 shows adolescents aged 12-17, rates of major depressive episode have increased 52% from 2005-2017, and 63% in young adults aged 19-25 from 2009-2017. Rates in adolescents aged 12-17 changed from 8.7% to 13.2%, while rates in young adults aged 18-25 changed from 8.1% to 13.2%. These increases are exclusive to Gen Z and Millennials. This variance by age cohort indicates something unique to the younger generations is impacting their mental health more than older generations.
US students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade see sharp increase in depressive symptoms
Figure 2 shows a similar trend amongst males and females in 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. It looks further back to see the relative rates of depressive symptoms dating back to 1991. For girls, depressive symptoms decreased from 1991 to 2011, then pivoted, subsequently showing a gradual increase from 2012 to 2018. Males also saw similar trends, but the increase in symptoms compared to girls is significantly less, showing that around 11 percent more females report depressive symptoms than males.
US adolescents aged 12-17 see steady increase in Major Depression
Figure 3 shows that the relative increase is around 161% for boys, and 145% for girls. The absolute increase from 2010 to 2021 was 18% in girls, and 6% in boys. Despite the relative increase in boys being higher than girls, given that girls are already predisposed to higher rates, the absolute increase is actually 3 times higher than in boys of the same age. 1 in 4 American girls ages 12-17 are reporting having a major depressive episode in the last year. More than 1 in 8 boys also reported having depressive episodes. It’s important to notice the relatively stable level of major depression in both boys and girls prior to 2010, with the beginning of the uptrend occurring the lead up to 2010.
U.S. Anxiety Prevalence increased 92% since 2010 in ages 18-25
Figure 4 shows levels of anxiety in young adults have also skyrocketed since 2010. On the lower end of rising rates, those aged 35-49 only saw an 18% increase. While still decently high, relative to younger populations, it is low. The lowest would be ages 50 plus where there was an observed 7% decrease in anxiety, which contrasts the 62% increase in ages 26-34, and the 92% increase in ages 18-25.
This begins to raise questions as to why exactly younger generations are experiencing such high rates of anxiety in comparison to older generations. There is hardly a consensus on the cause, although there is a more widely accepted consensus that social media is impacting adolescents and young adults mental health in a negative manner.
US undergraduates diagnosed with anxiety and depression increase over 100%
A summary of the data was given for figure 5, which is quoted below.
Figure (5) comes from a very different source: the mental health clinics on hundreds of college campuses. You can see once again that there’s not much to see before 2010, but the epidemic is in full gear by 2015. You can also see that while rates of all disorders have increased, the increases are largest, in both relative and absolute terms, for mood disorders, a class of mental illness that is made up primarily of depression and anxiety disorders (which includes anorexia). In 2019, just before covid, one in four American college students suffered from an anxiety disorder, compared to just one in ten back in 2010. The rate may be higher today.
Nonfatal Self-harm rates in hospitalized teens ages 10-14, and 15-19
Figure 6 shows a steady but slight up trend in self harm rates in boys ages 15-19 totaling 37% in 2020, where the up trend is still in effect after a peak and subsequent down trend that starting back in 2015, and that lasted until 2017. Girls saw a sharper increase of 48% to date, but the trend is currently showing a decrease from the peak of 2016 that concluded a 7 year increase.
Figure 7 shows that boys experienced a 48% increase between 2010 and 2020. While this may be true, there was a peak in 2018 which was followed by a steady decline until at least 2020. In general, girls have higher numbers of hospitalizations from self-harm. The rate for girls had nearly tripled by 2020. Data shows that girls experienced a 188% increase between 2010 and 2020, drastically higher than boys. Girls being impacted at a higher rate, in this case, is in line with nearly every other data set showing consistently higher rates in young girls.
Suicide rates in US teens aged 10-14, and in ages 15-19
For suicide, the rates are always higher for boys and men. Girls and women make more suicide attempts, but they are more likely to use reversible means. Boys and men are more likely to use firearms and tall buildings, which are not reversible. Suicide takes a much larger toll on boys and men. But it is noteworthy that the relative increase since 2010 is larger for girls and women.
Figure 8 shows that from 2010 till 2020, there were increases in excess of 100% in both boys and girls. While the percent increase in girls was much larger than in boys, boys are already committing suicide in larger numbers than girls in this age range. Between 2012 and 2013, there was an observed 67% increase in suicides for girls. This spike yielded the single highest increase by year since 2010.
Figure 9, which looks at suicide in US teens aged 15-19 shows a nearly identical pattern. There is no indication this will trend down from here. Boys increased 35%, while girls increased 63.9% There was a quick correction between 2018 and 2019 where the rates for boys dropped rapidly, but girls still maintained steady rates with little variance during the same period of time.
Is social media causing the Mental Health Epidemic?
According to Haidt, he believes there is a preponderance of evidence that points to a causal relationship between the mental health epidemic and the rise in mental health issues.
Depression in UK teens has a direct correlation to time spent on social media
Whether there is a widely accepted consensus on the relationship between Social Media and the mental health epidemic or not, it is clear there is a strong correlation between the amount of time spent on these apps and the percentage of teens in the UK that have depression.
Average mental health quotient depending on the age of first smartphone ownership
It’s also clear based on the data above that the average mental health quotient is negatively impacted the younger a person is when they receive their first smart phone.
Females 18-24
Males age 18-24
Unsurprisingly, we see that female only cohorts are more likely to have negative mental health when given their first smart phone at a younger age than male cohorts. However, in both cohort, the data clearly indicates the older one is before they receive their first smart phone, the better off they will be in terms of mental health.
Depression rates in US teen girls by possible cause
The possible causes of depression in teen girls is showing that not only smart phone ownership, but social media use, and access to internet are all possible factors in the sharp increases.
In a report by the Guardian, they make the assertion that, “Facebook has kept internal research secret for two years that suggests it’s Instagram app makes body image issues worse for teenage girls.” They go on to explain how Meta, formerly known as Facebook, had been conducting research into the negative effects that have continually shown its harmful for a large portion of the population.
“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” a subsequent presentation reported in March 2020.
With the advent of smart phones, and the creation of an entire industry which gave birth to the “attention economy,” our society began down its path of radical transformation. These new technologies would soon change things in unimaginable ways. Fast forward to 2023, where rates of social media users are expected to reach upwards of 4.89 billion people worldwide, representing a 6.5% increase from a year ago.
Roughly 210 million people suffer from social media addiction in the US. Teens are spending over 7 hours a day on these platforms which is likely in-part tied to 34% of young adults experiencing FOMO—Fear of Missing Out—when not on these platforms. 40% of young adults complain they lose sleep due to their addiction. Teens are also having negative emotions tied to a lack of interactions on their posts. 15% of people aged 23-28 say they are addicted to social media.
The lengthy list of negative impacts social media addiction has on young adults and adolescents is not some new revelation. However, it’s become increasingly important for parents to grasp the gravity of the situation at hand. Social media has been linked to increased rates in mental illness and suicide. This is a reality that’s ultimately predicated on an industries profit-driven psychological manipulations, not your child’s well-being. The consequences of neglecting to monitor and manage your child’s screen time could be dire.
This is not being covered to alarm parents, or scare them into behaving a certain way. The intent is to show there is reason to believe social media has a causal relationship to increased rates of mental illness, and to suggest preventative measures could be taken to help reduce the likelihood your child is included in these statistics.
Ultimately, I would agree with Jon Haidt’s assessment.
Social media is absolutely in some part, if not in large part causing the mental health epidemic amongst adolescents that not only we in the Anglo-sphere are experiencing, but cohorts on an international level are also living through.
After Babel has done some great work to compile a large swathe of data on their Substack publication. Jonathan Haidt is the owner of After Babel, and here is his bio and mission state. Their breakdown of the key takeaways from the research conducted by Sapien Labs is fantastic, and was the inspiration for my social media series. So thank you to their team for the work you’ve done! Go support them if you’ve enjoyed so far.
For counter arguments you can go to
and read Jon Haidt’s piece called Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media and Mental Illness.