Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up

Studies

from the yet-more-evidence-that-haidt-is-wrong dept

For years now, we’ve been repeatedly pointing out that the “social media is destroying kids” narrative, popularized by Jonathan Haidt and others, has been built on a foundation of shaky, often contradictory research. We’ve noted that the actual data is far more nuanced than the moral panic suggests, and that policy responses built on that panic might end up causing more harm than they prevent.

Well, here come two massive new studies—one from Australia, one from the UK—that land like a sledgehammer on Haidt’s narrative—and, perhaps more importantly, on Australia’s much-celebrated social media ban for kids under 16.

The Australian study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, followed over 100,000 Australian adolescents across three years and found something that should give every policymaker pause: the relationship between social media use and well-being isn’t linear. It’s U-shaped. Perhaps most surprisingly, kids who use social media moderately have the best outcomes. Kids who use it excessively have worse outcomes. But here’s the kicker: kids who don’t use it at all also have worse outcomes.

This isn’t to say that all kids should use social media. Unlike some others, we’re not saying any of this shows that social media causes good or bad health outcomes. We’re pointing out that the claims of inherent harm seem not just overblown, but wrong.

From the study’s key findings:

A U-shaped association emerged where moderate social media use was associated with the best well-being outcomes, while both no use and highest use were associated with poorer well-being. For girls, moderate use became most favorable from middle adolescence onward, while for boys, no use became increasingly problematic from midadolescence, exceeding risks of high use by late adolescence.

This seems like pretty strong evidence that Haidt’s claims of inherent harm are not well-founded, and the policy proposals to ban kids entirely from social media are a bad idea. For older teenage boys, having no social media was associated with worse outcomes than having too much of it. The study found that nonusers in grades 10-12 had significantly higher odds of low well-being compared to moderate users—with boys showing an odds ratio of 3.00 and girls at 1.79.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Manchester just published a separate study in the Journal of Public Health that followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years. Their conclusion? Screen time spent on social media or gaming does not cause mental health problems in teenagers. At all.

From the Guardian’s coverage of the UK study:

The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers’ symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls’ and boys’ social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year.

Zero. Not “small.” Not “modest.” Zero.

The UK researchers also examined whether how kids use social media matters—active chatting versus passive scrolling. The answer? Neither appeared to drive mental health difficulties. As lead author Dr. Qiqi Cheng put it:

We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems – the story is far more complex than that.

The Australian researchers, to their credit, are appropriately cautious about causation:

While heavy use was associated with poorer well-being and abstinence sometimes coincided with less favorable outcomes, these findings are observational and should be interpreted cautiously.

But while researchers urge caution, politicians have been happy to sprint ahead.

Australia leapt into the fray, and the ban has so far proven to be a complete mess.

The entire premise of Australia’s ban—and similar proposals floating around in various US states and across Europe—is that social media is inherently harmful to young people, and that removing access is protective. But both studies suggest the reality is far more complicated. The Australian researchers explicitly call this out:

Social media’s association with adolescent well-being is complex and nonlinear, suggesting that both abstinence and excessive use can be problematic depending on developmental stage and sex.

In other words: Australia’s ban may be taking kids who would have been moderate users with good outcomes and forcing them into the “no use” category that the study associates with worse well-being. It’s potentially the worst of all possible policy outcomes.

The UK study’s co-author, Prof. Neil Humphrey, reinforced this point:

Our findings tell us that young people’s choices around social media and gaming may be shaped by how they’re feeling but not necessarily the other way around. Rather than blaming technology itself, we need to pay attention to what young people are doing online, who they’re connecting with and how supported they feel in their daily lives.

That’s a crucial distinction that the moral panic crowd keeps glossing over: correlation running in the opposite direction than assumed. Kids who are already struggling, and who aren’t getting the support they need, might use social media differently—not the other way around.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. We’ve covered study after study showing that the relationship between social media and teen mental health is complicated, context-dependent, and nowhere near as clear-cut as Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” would have you believe. As we’ve noted before, correlation is not causation, and the timing of teen mental health declines doesn’t actually line up neatly with smartphone adoption the way the narrative claims.

But nuance doesn’t make for good headlines or popular books. “Social Media Is Complicated And The Effects Depend On How You Use It, Your Age, Your Sex, And A Bunch Of Other Factors” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Smartphones Destroyed A Generation.”

No one’s beating down my door to write a book detailing the trade-offs and nuances. Instead, Haidt’s book remains on the NY Times’ best seller list almost two years after being published.

The Australian study also highlights something else that should be obvious but apparently needs repeating: social media serves genuine social functions for teenagers. Being completely cut off from the platforms where your peers are socializing, sharing, and connecting has costs. The researchers note:

Heavy use has been associated with distress, while abstinence may cause missed connections.

This is what we’ve been saying forever. These platforms aren’t just “distraction machines” or “attention hijackers” or whatever scary framing is popular this week. They’re where social life happens for a lot of young people. Cutting kids off entirely doesn’t return them to some idyllic pre-digital social existence. It cuts them off from their actual social world.

Both sets of researchers make the same point: online experiences aren’t inherently harmless—hurtful messages, online pressures, and extreme content can have real effects. But blunt instruments like time-based restrictions or outright bans completely miss the target, and are unlikely to help those who need it most. The Australian authors recommend “promotion of balanced and purposeful digital engagement as part of a broader strategy.”

That’s… actually sensible policy advice? Based on actual evidence?

Imagine that.

Meanwhile, Australia is out there celebrating how many accounts it’s deleted, tech companies are scrambling to comply with fines of up to $49.5 million, the UK is actively considering following Australia’s lead, and policymakers around the world are looking at Australia as a model to follow.

Maybe—just maybe—they should look at the actual research coming out of Australia and the UK instead.

Filed Under: jonathan haidt, kids, mental health, research, social media