Association calls for more research, regulation, better messaging to parents and teens

Additional research is needed to better understand how certain features and content inherent in social media, as well as user behavior, may be affecting our children for both good and bad, APA Chief Science Officer Mitch Prinstein, PhD, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The age at which children begin to use social media is an area of great concern, he said. “Developmental neuroscientists have revealed that there are two highly critical periods for adaptive neural development. One of these is the first year of life. The second begins at the outset of puberty and lasts until early adulthood (i.e., from approximately 10 to 25 years old). This latter period is highly relevant, as this is when a great number of youths are offered relatively unfettered access to devices and unrestricted or unsupervised use of social media and other online platforms.”

Recent research shows over 50% of teens reporting at least one symptom of clinical dependency on social media. He also outlined several additional areas of concern that have emerged from scientific research. Social media sites ostensibly exist to foster social connections, he said. But many youth use the sites to compare themselves to others, seeking “likes” and other metrics rather than healthy, successful relationships.

Social media sites ostensibly exist to foster social connections, he said. But many youth use the sites to compare themselves to others, seeking “likes” and other metrics rather than healthy, successful relationships.

In other words, social media offers the ‘empty calories of social interaction’ that appear to help satiate our biological and psychological needs, but do not contain any of the healthy ingredients necessary to reap benefits,

Social media also heightens the risk for negative peer influence among adolescents, as well as for addictive social media use and stress, he added, citing research showing that many young people use social media more than they intend to and that they have difficulty stopping its use.

Recent studies have revealed that technology and social media use is associated with changes in structural brain development (i.e., changing the size and physical characteristics of the brain). This highlights the risks associated with young people accessing social media sites that glamorize disordered eating, cutting and other harmful behaviors. Filtering or removing this type of content is often not done or warnings are not triggered. So vulnerable youth are not sheltered from the effects that exposure to this content can have on their own behavior. “This underscores the need for platforms to deploy tools to filter content, display warnings, and create reporting structures to mitigate these harms.”

Another area of concern is what young people are missing out on by spending so many hours on social media—especially sleep, which they need for healthy development. “Research suggests that insufficient sleep is associated with poor school performance, difficulties with attention, stress regulation, and increased risk for automobile accidents,” he said.

But it is not all bad news. Some research demonstrates that social media use is linked with positive outcomes that can benefit youth mental health, according to Prinstein. “Perhaps most notably, psychological research suggests that young people form and maintain friendships online. These relationships often afford opportunities to interact with a more diverse peer group than offline, and the relationships are close and meaningful and provide important support to youth in times of stress,” he said. This can be especially important for youth with marginalized identities, including racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minorities.

Dr. Prinstein made several recommendations for what Congress can do to address many of the risks social media may pose to youth. These include:

• Allocating at least $100 million to study social media and adolescent mental health;
• Mandating that data from algorithms be made public, along with other internal research conducted by social media companies;
• Requiring social media platforms to develop tools to mitigate the harm to youth, such as disabling particularly addictive features and enabling users to opt out of certain algorithms;
• Mandating protections for marginalized and LGBTQ+ kids, while retaining their ability to connect with others in such groups for social support;
• Passing the Kids Online Safety Act and previously proposed legislative fixes such as updates to the Children Online Privacy and Protection Act.

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Source: APA.org Press Release

Senate Judiciary Committee (PDF, 355KB).

**Update Article – 02/16/23 Published by National Public Radio – “10 things to know about how social media affects teens’ brains” discusses in more depth the important takeaway messages from Dr Prinstein’s presentation to the US Judiciary Committee [Link to article]