Good and Bad Effects of Social Media on

Teens and Kids

Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are godsends to
kids and teens who want to get in touch and know what is going on with their friends or
relatives.  By just opening an app or a website, they can communicate with and learn about
all the people who are important to them (at least those who are signed in to the same
network).

Why is Social Media Bad for Kids?

Like many things that people are passionate about, there are detractors to social media use. 
When it comes to kids and teens, many studies argues that social media has bad effects on the
kids’ minds –  and the damage could be long-term and irrevocable.  On the other hand,
defenders are quick to point out that kids on social networking are increasing their social
interaction while wiring their brains to adapt to new technology.

In summary, here are the negative effects of social media according to scientific studies:

 Addiction – Experts believe that knowing what’s going on with friends and what they
are thinking or feeling can be addicting.
 Wasting time – Because social media is addicting, kids spend many hours using the
screen, thus decreasing their productivity. This leads to neglecting other important
activities such as schoolwork, reading, engaging in hobbies and face-to-face
interactions.
 Obsessing about body image, status and popularity – Teens, especially girls, are
sensitive to social influence, and this peer sensitivity can lead them to obsessive
thinking about body image, status, and popularity. Social media often promote
unrealistic standards of beauty which can negatively impact body image perceptions
and lead to body dissatisfaction, unhealthy eating habits, and development of eating
disorder.
 Experience bad influence and cyberbullying – Social media are fertile grounds for
bad influencers and anonymous venoms and hunting grounds for deviants and other
predators. It can also be used to harass, intimidate, or harm your kids. Cyberbullying
can have serious emotional and psychological consequences for victims, leading to
increased stress, depression, and even suicidal thoughts.
 Venue for bad behavior – For kids who crave attention, Facebook and other social
media becomes a venue for them to act out. These kids may make inappropriate
statements, pictures and videos that could ultimately harm them. Also, posts and
materials that are published online tend to be permanent and may haunt them in the
future.
 Lack of sleep – Excessive use of social media, especially around bedtime, can disrupt
your child’s sleep patterns. The blue light emitted by screens can interfere with sleep
quality, duration, and regular sleep patterns, potentially affecting their overall well-
being, cognitive functioning, and brain development.
 Loss of privacy – Children could post sensitive personal information online that can
be used by bad actors to harass, exploit or harm them.
  Mental health issues – Last but not the least, excessive use of social media has been
associated with an increased risk of mental health problems such as depression,
anxiety, loneliness, and poor self-esteem.

Bad Effects of Social Media on Kids and Teens According to Studies

Here are the scientific studies, reports and expert opinions that support the list of bad effects
of social media to kids and teens:

 The one common bad effect of social media is addiction – the constant checking of
TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media updates.
Experts believe that knowing what’s going on with friends and what they are thinking
or feeling can be addicting. Researchers at UCLA’s Brain Mapping Center has found
that being appreciated in social media through “likes” was seen in brain scans to
activate the reward centers of the brain. This reward circuitry is particularly sensitive
during adolescence, and this may partly explain why teenagers are more into social
media.
 For kids and teens, knowing how many people like what they posted, how many
followed (or unfollowed) them, and knowing what people say about them also leads
to compulsive checking. This addiction to social media could disrupt other
worthwhile activities like concentrating on schoolwork, reading or engaging in sports.
The heaviest social media users admit to checking their social media feeds more than
100 times a day, sometimes even during school.
 According to study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
Pediatrics, habitual checking of social media feeds among adolescents and teens
changes the way they process social rewards and punishment to the point that it can
even change adult brain anatomy. This brain change seems to be associated with
sensitivity towards social conditions. Kids who use social media more become more
anxious about social situations as they grow older compared to those who use it less.
This may severely impact the developing brains of adolescents, which could have
long-term consequences into adulthood.
 The U.S. Surgeon General in May 2023 stated that social media can profoundly harm
the mental health of youth, especially adolescent girls. Some of the negative effects
cited are body image issues and social comparison which leads to self-esteem
problems, eating behaviors and sleep quality problems. According to the advisory,
adolescents who spend more than 3 hours per day on social media face double the risk
of experiencing poor mental health, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
 A 2021 Wall Street Journal article revealed that Facebook’s own research shows that
Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) is toxic for teen girls. In one in 3 teen girls,
the social media makes their body image issues worse, and despite knowing that what
they are seeing is bad for their mental health, they are unable to stop using it. Worse,
6% of suicidal American girls blames Instagram for wanting to kill themselves. (This,
however, was disputed by Facebook.)
 A 2015 U.K. Office for National Statistics finds that children who spend more than 3
hours each school day on social media sites are more than twice as likely to suffer
poor mental health. Their immersion in a virtual world may cause these children to
experience delay in their emotional and social development. According to the report,
social media are potentially “a source of social comparison, cyber bullying and
isolation”, which could lead to mental health problems.
 A report published by IZA Institute of Labor Economics even suggests that just one
hour a day on social media can make a teen miserable. The study also theorized that
this may be caused by issues of cyberbullying, an increase in social comparisons, and
a decrease in real-life, face-to-face activities.
 Another 2015 study by the British Psychological Society finds that teenagers being
obligated to be responsive to social media (liking posts, answering texts and direct
messages) throughout the day affect their mental health.
 A University of Michigan study seem to indicate that in young adults, Facebook use
leads to decline in subjective well-being. The more young adults use Facebook, the
worse they feel moment-to-moment and the less they feel satisfied with their lives
overall.
 DoSometing.org, “one of the largest organizations for young people and social
change”, lists several bad effects of social media, which includes sleep disorder,
depression, addiction, 24/7 stress, isolation, insecurity, and fear of missing out
(FOMO).
 FOMO or the fear of missing out on something important (like their friends’ jokes,
parties, activities and other ways of having fun) leads to depression and anxiety in
teen social media users, according to a survey done by the Australian Psychological
Society. FOMO is one of the main reasons for teenagers’ heavy use of social media.
 A 2019 study from the University of Montreal has found that among various types of
screen time including playing video games, social media is more linked to depressive
symptoms in teenagers. This is because in platforms popular to teens, especially
Instagram, teens are likely to compare their lives to idealized images in their feed, and
promote upward social comparison. Oftentimes, this makes them feel inadequate and
bad about themselves.
 Instagram, specifically may be bad for teen girls because it leads to more comparisons
between them and others. These comparisons may not even be based on reality
because Instagram images are subjected to filters, makeup, lighting, angles and other
manipulations. Also, functional MRIs show that “likes” affect the reward circuit part
of the brain, and associates the image with being better. Instagram is said to attract
girls more than boys.
 Among social media, Instagram was found to be the worst for teens’ mental health,
according to a survey. Instagram, along with Snapchat, are said to be very image-
focused and it appears they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in
young people.
 Also, Instagram and Snapchat use was found to produce problematic digital behaviors
in children younger than 11. They are likely to have online-only friends, visit sites
parents would disapprove of, and take part in online harassment.
 Screen relationships detract from spending time in real life relationships and
developing social skills. According to Patricia Greenfield, professor of psychology in
the UCLA College, the implications of her research is that when people use digital
media for social interaction, they’re spending less time developing social skills and
learning to read nonverbal cues. “Social interaction is needed to develop skills in
understanding the emotions of other people.”
 The results of a survey from the University of Glasgow shows that social media use
particularly at night, with strong emotional involvement, led to poorer sleep quality,
lower self-esteem, and higher levels of anxiety. This can be a problem since teens
with low self-esteem grow up as depressed adults, according to previous studies.
 Social media also have a number of celebrity “influencers” who are actually paid to
promote products, events, and services. Teens may have a hard time distinguishing
between what is actually promotional advertising and fake information, and what is
authentic.
 Young people who have a history of harming themselves or attempting suicide might
be particularly vulnerable to negative messages posted online, new research shows.
The 2017 review, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that kids and young
adults who have thoughts of self-harm or suicide actually spend more time on the
Internet and are more often victims of cyberbullying than their peers who do not have
such thoughts.
 A number of studies, including that from the San Diego State University suggests that
more screen time and social media may have caused a rise in depression and suicide
among American adolescents. The study also found that people who spend less time
looking at screens and more time having face-to-face social interactions are less likely
to be depressive or suicidal.
 Some kids realize that spending a lot of time in social media results in wasted time,
and this negatively affects their mood
 Selfies, which became popular with the rise of camera phones, can trigger mental
health conditions when a person becomes obsessed with looks. The Mirror, for
example, recently featured a selfie addict who tried to kill himself when he couldn’t
take a perfect photo. According to Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today,
“Preoccupation with selfies can be a visible indicator of a young person with a lack of
confidence or sense of self that might make him or her a victim of other problems as
well. Excessive and increasingly provocative selfie-ing is a form of ‘acting out,’ a
common behavioral pattern to get attention.”
 Educators also note that for kids and teens in social networks, there are no spelling
and grammar rules. In fact it is cool to misspell and not make sense. Less
sophisticated children will find it hard to differentiate between social networking
communication and real world communication. In fact many teachers are complaining
that social networking communication with misspellings and lack of grammar are
seeping through student’s school writings.
 Social media habits are also blamed for lack of sleep and sleep problems in teenagers.
Bright light emitted from smart phones and tablets are thought to disrupt sleep cycles.
For young people sleep is important for learning, the development of the young brain,
as well as for growing and staying healthy.
 A study published in the medical journal JAMA suggests that the more teens check
social media and stream video, the more likely they might develop symptoms of
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, which causes shorter attention span,
or distractibility.

 Baroness Susan Greenfield , a top neuroscientist of the Oxford University warns

about the lifelong effects of too much social networking. Facebook and other social
media sites “are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are
attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a short attention span and live
for the moment”. There is hardly any concentration skills required in participating in
these social media sites, and these train the brain to have poor attention span.
 Kids are detracted from learning to communicate in the real world. There are reports
from teachers that social networking is affecting kids’ comprehension levels. Also, if
kids communicate primarily through the screen they do not learn the subtleties of real
 life communication – such as body language, tone of voice, and subconsciously
sensing the molecules that other people release.
 Social media sites make kids more self-centered. Since Instagram and other sites give
kids their own page which is about them, it leads some vulnerable kids to think that
everything revolves around them, a precursor for emotional problems in their later
life. This might also result in inability to empathize.
 These sites make kids prone to sensationalism.
 A study by a team of economists at the University of Sheffield, shows that the more
time children spend chatting on Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram, the
less happy they feel about their school work, the school they attend, their appearance,
their family and their life overall. Children see their friends portraying themselves in
idealized state when they post in social media. A vulnerable teen may suffer from
depression when he reads great things happening to his friends, and his life is not so
great in comparison. This effect was found to be worse for those who lack self-
confidence. However, the study also found that teens in social media feel happier
about their friendships.
 Pediatricians observe that some teens suffer from “Facebook depression”. After
spending a lot of time on Facebook and other popular social networking sites, some
teens become anxious and moody. Again, this seems to be caused by being exposed to
friends whose idealized presentation of their lives appear to be superior to theirs.
Teens who experience “Facebook depression” usually have trouble with social
interactions in general, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
 In 2021, young TikTok users were found to develop tics and having tic-like attacks.
This movement disorder may have brought on by stress and anxiety, probably made
worse by their excessive social media consumption, as well as the COVID pandemic.
 Being affected by social media can even cause in a children’s death, like when they
participate in challenges like the TikTok blackout challenge where kids are
encouraged by others to choke themselves until they pass out.
 When children are involved in extracurricular activities, they’re more likely to feel
happier and healthier than their counterparts who are glued to a screen, a study finds
(assuming they enjoy the sports)