We Know Social Media Can Destroy Our Mental Health. What Can We Actually Do About It?
“Sometimes I just need a break. At least a week to recharge and reset. Deep clean my space. Digital detox,” Mia Luckey, a 24-year-old self-described intuitive massage therapist based in Dallas, tweeted in March to her 24,000 followers. “I really just wanna be quiet and still for like a week.”
At nine years old, Luckey had her own MySpace account—an Alvin and the Chipmunks fan page—and an influx of followers who cared about what she had to say. Posting became addictive. After Luckey started high school, where she admittedly felt like an outcast among her peers, she found validation when she expressed herself on platforms like Tumblr, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter.
By the time she graduated, Luckey was glued to her phone and social media, where she got sucked into dark “rabbit holes” of political news, among other topics, as she endlessly scrolled through her feeds. She was spending between three to six hours a day on social media but it no longer felt validating; instead, it left her feeling anxious, unsatisfied, and not unlike a “zombie.” “When you get caught into that loop of scrolling, it’s hard to break away and witness and experience the real world,” she tells SELF.
Social media has become an inescapable part of our lives. Recent polls say 72% of Americans use at least one social media platform. For adults ages 18 to 29, that number jumps to around 84%. Estimates for teens hover around 90%.
Many of us turn to these platforms to mentally escape via cute cat videos or to connect with friends in hilarious group chats. And we’ve all felt the surge of serotonin a simple like can produce. But data suggests some people can experience the opposite effect and end up feeling isolated, detached, and, well, sad. Over the last few years, studies have shown a correlation between the time a person spends using social media and an increased risk of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, body-image issues, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.
Research also shows that feelings of intense stress catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic made us even more dependent on social media networks, and according to some researchers, that shift has intensified potential mental health risks. But just how harmful social media can be—and what to do about it—is a matter of hot debate.
The case for social media’s awfulness is rooted in the research.
There have been numerous studies and conclusions surrounding social media’s mental health impact—including one that suggests technology use, which includes social media, is no more harmful to teens than innocuous activities such as eating potatoes. However, if you look at research that has been done with the highest quality measures and the largest samples, “the results are very clear,” according to Jean Twenge, PhD, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who has authored more than 140 scientific publications and books, including iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us. “Extensive amounts of time on social media [is] linked to depression and loneliness and unhappiness,” she tells SELF.
One of the latest studies to examine technology’s influence on teens’ overall mental well-being, led by Dr. Twenge, used an advanced statistical technique involving data sets from more than 300,000 teens from the U.S. and the U.K. The research concluded that for girls specifically, the link between worsened mental health and increased social media use is greater than that between poor mental health and binge drinking, hard drug use, and other alarming risk factors. That doesn’t necessarily mean social media is as dangerous as, say, guzzling large amounts of alcohol at a young age—but it does mean that the amount of time a person spends on social media can help researchers predict the gravity of the mental health consequences associated with it.
And this problem isn’t limited to teens. In a 2021 observational study from the University of Arkansas, researchers analyzed the social media habits of a national sample of nearly 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 30 and found a significant correlation between social media use and developing depression at a six-month follow-up. Some of the same researchers have just completed similar preliminary research that appears to show parallel results with social media exposure and developing anxiety.
The reason some experts are so worried about social media’s mental health effects compared to other disruptive technologies of the past (TV, radio, and, yes, even printing presses) is its unprecedented pervasive influence, especially in the way it forces us to compare ourselves to others. Decades ago, researchers found that if you left a woman alone in a room with a stack of magazines and let her leaf through them, her body image and self-esteem tanked, Melissa G. Hunt, PhD, associate director of clinical training at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychology, tells SELF. “The difference is that those magazines weren’t in people’s hands 24/7,” she says. “They weren’t the last thing they looked at before they went to sleep, the very first thing they looked at in the morning, the thing they checked at lunch.”
Public health researcher Brian Primack, MD, PhD, the incoming dean of public health and human sciences at Oregon State University who co-authored the aforementioned University of Arkansas study, describes this attachment to social media as an “opportunity cost.” The need to check and scroll and share essentially robs us of time that could be used to achieve something personally rewarding, like pursuing an artistic, athletic, or spiritual goal. This has much to do with the insidious design of social media’s “stickiness.” Armies of psychologists, designers, and developers are committed to making a particular platform feel like such a party—one you feel the need to be a part of—that you can’t leave until two hours have gone by and you have absolutely nothing to show for it.
For marginalized communities, social media can have uniquely distressing effects.
For BIPOC and other marginalized people who see, sometimes involuntarily, repeated violence against their communities in videos and headlines—such as police brutality against Black people or violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals rising during the pandemic—social media can be even more daunting and damaging.
One new study suggests that people of color, teens especially, who either experience direct racial discrimination or witness the racial discrimination of others, are more likely to have symptoms of depression or anxiety, notes Neha Chaudhary, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard Medical School and chief medical officer at BeMe Health, a mobile mental health platform for teens. In her practice, Dr. Chaudhary hears from teens who struggle mentally for weeks or months after learning about a hate crime on social media or seeing acts of violence against their communities. Some describe it as a weight that hangs over them, making them feel “jumpy, restless, or on edge,” she tells SELF.
Luckey recalls being in that exact predicament. She took a break from social media in May 2020 after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minnesota and the Black Lives Matter movement gained strong nationwide support. As a Black woman, she had to unplug to escape the collective grief and trauma that her community was experiencing. “It was really hard and really heavy,” she recalls.
More recently, the racist and sexist questioning from Republican senators in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson felt like a personal attack to many Black observers, making it difficult to follow the event on social media and elsewhere. Ebony Butler, PhD, a licensed psychologist who goes by Dr. Ebony on social media, says that for herself and many of her followers, the hearing was so triggering it could only be listened to in what she called “microdoses.” But that is just one example of how an event that was heavily broadcast on social media unveiled the reality of everyday microaggressions. “It doesn’t stop just because we’re out of ‘the vortex’ [of social media],” Dr. Butler says. “We continue to experience this daily.”
The psychological risks associated with social media also depend on how we engage with it.
Much of the debate over social media’s potential harm hinges on a lack of evidence to prove it is the direct cause of mental health problems. A recent study from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that who we follow, what we do, and how long we spend on social media are key to preserving overall well-being. In 2021, Dr. Hunt and her fellow researchers set up an experiment with 88 undergraduates and found that for participants with depressive symptoms, the ones who started following actual friends versus acquaintances or strangers and who limited social media time to 60 minutes per day had significant improvements in self-reported well-being compared to those who did not.
Social media, even with its abundance of imperfections, gives us the autonomy to share our passions and our voices, even from a mental health perspective. Just look at fleeting, viral trends like the “my therapist told me” hashtag on TikTok. In these videos, you’ll find everyday people sharing tidbits of their experiences in therapy, some of which are humorous and others with tips on things that made a difference in their lives—a simple but destigmatizing way to talk about mental health and the importance of seeking help.
Then, there’s the emergence of the mental health influencer, which can include licensed mental health professionals—but also plenty of life coaches and people who have amassed large followings for sharing their personal struggles. Those who are genuine in their intentions to inspire have made it possible for people to access free information or enlightening conversations, says Dr. Chaudhary.
But there is also a sea of self-proclaimed experts or advocates who have no business giving out medically framed psychological advice. This juxtaposition—a licensed pro versus a life coach or “healer” with a phone—further highlights that we need to curate our feeds intentionally. That’s why Dr. Primack says “social media is the double-edged sword of our time.” For him, the question becomes: How do we sharpen all the positives while dulling the possible negatives?
In his book, You Are What You Click: How Being Selective, Positive and Creative Can Transform Your Social Media Experience, Dr. Primack proposes that we need a framework to consume our “digital media diet” in a healthier way, similar to the way the food pyramid transformed our thinking about what we eat. In order to live happier lives, we don’t need to swear off social media completely—but we should actively try to mitigate its possible downsides. Often-touted self-care strategies, such as setting time limits and turning off notifications, can be a great place to start. But as social media platforms continue to evolve, you may need to get even more specific with your emotional boundaries. Here are a few ways to think about doing that:
Cultivate a safe space: Studies have shown that involvement in advocacy groups and social justice initiatives—even those on social media—can help people to process and channel their feelings in a way that’s empowering, says Dr. Chaudhary. Joining a group that shares your values can help you explore certain topics in a way that fits your needs, especially when it comes to sensitive ones that could be potentially triggering.
Fight comparison syndrome: When we follow people who are mere acquaintances or strangers, the “fear of missing out” (hello, FOMO) may ironically feel more real. The advice to only follow people you’ve met in person is not new, but Dr. Primack’s explanation for why is illuminating: We already know the friends we’ve met in person as “complete people.” So, when you see their photos from that lavish-looking vacation in the French Riviera, you’ll be able to paint a realistic mental picture of how they got there (“Oh, they finally took time off work!” instead of “Oh, they’re obnoxiously loaded!”). This can help you feel happy for them, which is healthier than, say, feeling inadequate or resentful as you scroll through their beautiful photos.
Consider your negativity threshold: Negativity bias, a well-known psychological concept that refers to how negative events are experienced more powerfully than positive ones, also seeps into the digital world. If one person (real or not, in the case of a bot) misinterprets something you say on social media, will you think about it for the next three days? Every time you publish a post, Dr. Primack says you need to ask yourself: How willing are you to offend or irritate? How much negativity are you willing to take? The answers to these questions should guide how you plan to engage with your feeds.
Identify the experts: Talking about mental health on social media can be powerful—but Dr. Butler urges you to be cautious about whom you trust as a mental health advocate, especially if they tend to overgeneralize their advice, which can lead to misinformation. (No, not every ex is a narcissist and not everyone is gaslighting you, says Dr. Butler.) One simple way to do this is to vet your influencer sources by looking for an “L” in front of their credentials: licensed professionals with master’s-level clinical training such as LPC (licensed professional counselor), LCSW (licensed clinical social worker) and LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist), as well as those with a PhD (doctor of philosophy) or PsyD (doctor of psychology), will be the most credible.
Is the idea of “social media self-care” enough?
Mitigating the potential dangers of social media shouldn’t solely be left up to individual users—and in the case of children and teens, to their parents. Some researchers, including Dr. Twenge, argue that the minimum age for social media use should start between 16 to 18. She says the current minimum age, 13, was a “random” selection and “in some ways developmentally the worst possible time.”
Dr. Primack, however, says he is more concerned with how some tech companies seem to be trying to avoid responsibility for some of their content and marketing tactics. Take Facebook, for example: First reported by The Wall Street Journal, a whistleblower revealed the company has been quietly studying how its apps have the potential to worsen young girls’ self-esteem, yet the company has not made its internal findings public for lawmakers and researchers to further investigate. Dr. Primack argues that proposing parental controls for social media can be viewed as a way to “deflect blame” to parents, similar to how Big Tobacco did two decades ago when it launched a series of parent-focused ads with titles like “Could Your Kid Be Smoking?” Dr. Primack says that particular campaign helped pit parents and their children against each other.
That’s one reason why he and his 15-year-old daughter, Sadie, wrote an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune arguing that social media giants should be “held responsible for their actions and products.” It’s an idea that’s already taking hold. State prosecutors and bipartisan lawmakers are proposing a new era of Big Tech accountability, from eliminating broad legal protections to strengthening federal regulations.
In any capacity, social media is undeniably here to stay for the foreseeable future. As we continue to research and grapple with its consequences for our emotional well-being—and wait for the government to follow through with true reform—the onus will continue to fall on users to turn self-care into self-discipline.
That’s what ultimately happened for Luckey. Her social media restraint now includes “healthy boundaries” and “digital detoxing”—nature hikes that include books and journaling with no phone in sight, or swapping scrolling time with meditation and yoga. “It’s an escape and an outlet,” she says of social media. “But there are healthier outlets.”