Sharing – Adolescents with mental health conditions show different social media habits
You can’t spend any time on the internet without someone telling you that young people who use social media more are damaging their mental health. We don’t hear enough that the causality of that statement could also be reversed.
Young people with a diagnosable mental health condition report differences in their experiences of social media compared to those without a condition, including greater dissatisfaction with online friend counts and more time spent on social media sites.
So which is it? Are young people who spend time on social media damaging their mental health, or are those who already struggle with mental health spending more time on social media?
The truth is likely to be a little of both. We know that even the people who own social media companies block their kids from using them, and we know that in some cases, social media can be detrimental to mental health. We also know that there are young people who benefit from the community they find on social media, and we know that young people struggling to find community, and are thus dealing with the mental health effects of that, will spend a lot of time on social media compared to young people with strong communities surrounding them.
The point I want to make is not that social media is perfectly safe. I want us to understand that it is nuanced, and the impact on any one kid is undetermined. We know that kids with strong connections are safer and have better mental health. Instead of assuming that we’ve solved the youth mental health issue by blocking social media, let’s make sure our kids have the kind of community that helps rather than harms their mental health.
