Social Media Regulations and Mental Health

Question: If social media is doing harm to teenagers’ mental health, should it have stricter regulations and why?

Answer: Thank you for this question! To address the first part of your question, it’s important to know that the relationship between social media use and teen mental health is complex. The current scientific evidence shows that there is not a population-level clinically significant effect of social media on mental health. 

Let's unpack that. A population-level effect would imply that everyone in a population, meaning all teens, are impacted in the same way at the same level. That's not what happens. For example, one study found that engaging in social media use can have varying effects on well-being across individuals. This study evaluated adolescents over time and found that 45% of adolescents experienced no change in well-being after using social media, 28% experienced declines in well-being, and 26% experienced increases in well-being. 

Clinically significant effect means that the effect has impact all by itself. For example, if you get into a collision during a soccer game and tear your MCL, that is an impact all by itself regardless of whether you also have migraines or a family history of anxiety. That is not how social media’s impact works either. Social media’s impact on an individual teen varies based on multiple factors including the individual’s feelings, mood, and identity, the type of social media platform used, how the platform is used, the type of content, and whether social media use is getting in the way of other important behaviors like sleep, physical activity, and interaction with friends.

Here are a few resources that go into more detail about social media’s impact on teens:

• The Good and Bad of Social Media: What Research Tells Us
• Is social media addictive, destructive, or harmful to mental health? (& Tips for managing social media use)
• What impacts has social media had on youth? Both positive and negative. What can we do to reduce negative impacts? 

Regulatory Recommendations

While positive and negative experiences with social media vary between adolescents, there are steps that social media companies can take to make social media safer for all users. Several recent reports including the US Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health and the American Psychological Association’s Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence have called upon social media companies to improve safety and privacy features on their platforms. 

Center Co-Medical Directors, Drs. Moreno and Radesky discuss potential legislative changes to social media regulations that may support youth well-being in Benefits and Harms of Proposed Social Media Legislation and in Online child safety laws could help or hurt- 2 pediatricians explain what’s likely to work and what isn’t. For example, they suggest:

• Legislation that includes default privacy protections for youth that would allow users to limit their interactions to friends and communities they seek out 
• Policies that improve user control over platform settings, such as controlling the content that users see in their feeds and recommendations
• Legislation that prohibits data collection from youth social media users
• Platform-level policies that limit misinformation and hateful content
• Developing an effective age-verification system that will allow developmentally appropriate protections to be implemented for users of different ages

Tips for managing social media use

Many social media platforms do have some content, time, and privacy controls that teens can utilize to tailor their social media experience in a way that promotes well-being. There are also other steps that you can take to improve your experience online. 

• Explore the variety of control settings that social media platforms offer to understand how to curate your feed to the content that would be beneficial to you in this previous portal response on Managing Content on Social Media Feeds. 
• To focus your time during homework, school or at bedtime, consider setting “do-not-disturb” or “focus mode” so you are in control of when devices grab your attention 
• Develop a schedule that includes time for your offline hobbies and special interests. 
• Plan a regular sleep routine that helps you relax and enjoy restful sleep 
• Consider talking to your family about establishing a Family Media Plan that can provide ideas for rules, guidelines and shared media experiences across your family 
• Seek out media that you find valuable such as content that helps you learn, provides new perspectives, or connects you to others 

Find more helpful tips and strategies to practice healthy digital media use in this previous portal response on Screen Time for Teenagers. 

References

• Beyens, I., Pouwels, J. L., van Driel, I. I., Keijsers, L., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2024). Social Media Use and Adolescents’ Well-Being: Developing a Typology of Person-Specific Effect Patterns. Communication Research, 51(6), 691–716. 
• Gobin, K. C., McComb, S. E., & Mills, J. S. (2022). Testing a self-compassion micro-intervention before appearance-based social media use: Implications for body image. Body Image, 40, 200–206. 
• Mikami, A. Y., Khalis, A., & Karasavva, V. (2025). Logging out or leaning in? Social media strategies for enhancing well-being. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154(1), 171–189. 
• Moreno, M. A., & Radesky, J. S. (2024). Benefits and Harms of Proposed Social Media Legislation. JAMA Pediatrics, 178(9), 857–858. 
• SMRI. Social Media Research Institute. (n.d.)
• Valkenburg, P. M., Meier, A., & Beyens, I. (2022). Social media use and its impact on adolescent mental health: An umbrella review of the evidence. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 58–68. 
• Young, G. K. (2022). How much is too much: The difficulties of social media content moderation. Information & Communications Technology Law, 31(1), 1–16. 

Age: 13-17

Topics: social media, adolescent, mental health, regulations

Role: Teen