Maybe We're Wrong to Blame Social Media

Hmm....

It has quickly become conventional wisdom that social media and technology use in teens has led to an increase in anxiety and depression. I've heard this a lot recently. Last Friday, a speaker at an NAIS workshop I attended talked about clear linkages between screen time and mental health and spoke about how his school was going to ban cell phone use. "The research is clear", he told us.

I spent some time this weekend looking at research.

    Here's a screenshot of my Google Scholar search. The O'Keefe article is widely cited.



Using a regular Google search, I found this recent post in the ADAA's website. It directly links social media use to teen depression. Writing to parents of teens, the article cautions:

 "It’s important you learn how social media can cause depression and other problems."

But suppose there aren't any linkages at all?  I also found this just published longitudinal study of 500 teens done over eight years. It finds no link between social media use and depression and anxiety. While there has been a 40% increase in depression and a devatating 100% increase in suicide attempts among teens over the last decade, the authors find "that increased time spent on social media was not associated with increased mental health issues." Here's the study.

I post its abstract in full. It pulls no punches. The bold is mine.

Many studies have found a link between time spent using social media and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. However, the existing research is plagued by cross-sectional research and lacks analytic techniques examining individual change over time. The current research involves an 8-year longitudinal study examining the association between time spent using social media and depression and anxiety at the intra-individual level. Participants included 500 adolescents who completed once-yearly questionnaires between the ages of 13 and 20. Results revealed that increased time spent on social media was not associated with increased mental health issues across development when examined at the individual level. Hopefully these results can move the field of research beyond its past focus on screen time.

While I am sure this is hardly the last word; at the very least, it should make us question how if social media use is actually to blame for these crises in which many teens find themselves.