Social media’s impact on teenagers’ health: A closer look
Teenagers and social media are concerned with young people’s parents and family members. The time teenagers spend on their devices and what material they engage in can cause adults to worry. Three university professors gathered virtually to discuss this subject’s bad and good aspects. They explain social media’s physical and mental impact on teenagers’ health. The group also discusses how everyone is bundling issues surrounding this matter, causing more concern than necessary. One point that all three experts agreed upon is that social media is not all good or bad.
“One of the themes we see in our work is that social media is not a monolith. The story of teens on social media is neither all good nor all bad. We’ve found that teens are more likely to say social media’s impact on them personally has been mostly positive than mostly negative,” said Colleen McClain, research associate at the Pew Research Center.
The media briefing on Teens and social media took place in June. McClain was joined by Dr. Linda Charmaraman of Wellesley College and Dr. Jason Nagata of the University of California, San Francisco. Each expert tackled a specific topic and explained how parents and adults can apply what is shared. McClain revealed that most teens use YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram today. Her data showed that teen girls use TikTok the most out of the four, and connection and socialization are the reason for it. McClain’s material also uncovered that social media overwhelms teen girls with drama, fear of missing out (FOMO), or pressure to post for content or likes.
Dr. Charmaran’s research dives into how to prepare teens for social media. Her information deals with identifying risk and resilience in adolescent media use to empower them for greater well-being. Dr. Charmaraman explains that social media is not inherently good or bad. It depends on what the teens see and do. She further elaborates that parents should discuss with their teenagers what to do rather than what not to do. Dr Charmaran talks about pre-arming teens with self-awareness for the good and bad on social media. She encourages teens who seek out connections online only to keep the ones that make them feel good and eliminate the connections that make them feel bad. Dr. Charmaran advises parents to enlist aunts, uncles, coaches, school counselors, or whoever is in the teenager’s village to help guide them on online interactions.
“Our last study about parental monitoring of middle school and early adolescent youth showed that the dialect that you have to pre-warn young people with everything that could be happening on social media is a lot more positive and powerful predictor of if it’s going to go well or not if they’re going to have problematic internet use,” said Dr. Charmaran.
“If you wait until something happens, you must start clamping down on their use. It’s hard to treat it after it’s already happened rather than prevent it,” said Dr. Charmaran.
Dr. Jason Nagata discussed the toll social media and screen time take on teenagers’ health-related behaviors. He discussed how increased screen time leads to overeating. Teenagers online are exposed to food advertisements and usually sit down when scrolling online, which increases their time being sedentary when they could be active.
The data in his presentation expounded on this. Every hour a nine or ten-year-old child stays on social media, there is a 62 percent chance they develop an eating disorder the following year. Dr. Nagata elaborated on the connection between social media and eating disorders when he mentioned the constant comparison to unattainable body ideals, the pressure to display the body for likes, and exposure to eating disorder content.
Dr. Nagata shared some methods for reducing screen use in teenagers, such as restricting devices in the bedroom and at mealtimes. Parents can also present model behavior to teenagers by limiting their screen time.
“One of the biggest predictors of adolescent screen use was parent screen use. I think it’s imperative to practice what you preach and model good behavior. Family meal time and bedroom screen use could be times to limit screen use. This can affect eating and sleeping issues,” said Dr. Nagata.
Social media is a tool that, if misused, can create more problems than solve them. Material from all three experts illustrates that teenagers will use social media and screens no matter what, but parents can equip them with the proper knowledge and present the correct behaviors to prevent this tool from overrunning their lives.
