The Toll Of Social Media On Mental Health

Short Wave

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Rates of depression and anxiety have risen among teens over the last decade. Amid this ongoing mental health crisis, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines for parents to increase protection for teens online. In this encore episode, NPR science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff looks into the data on how that change has impacted the mental health of teenagers. In her reporting, she found that the seismic shift of smartphones and social media has re-defined how teens socialize, communicate and even sleep. In 2009, about half of teens said they were using social media daily, reported psychologist Jean Twenge. And by 2022, 95% of teens said they used some social media, and about a third said they use it constantly.

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0:30.0	Hey shirt waivers, Regina Barbara here with NPR Science Correspondent Mike
0:34.0	Mike Leukelef. Hey, hi Regina. So Mike Leine we brought you on to talk about
0:38.5	something that's been on my mind these days, especially having a daughter
0:41.9	about to start high school, it's
0:43.8	social media and mental health. Oh gosh, me too Regina. I have a daughter, she's a
0:49.7	little bit younger, but I still worry about it because for me personally social media has not been very healthy.
0:56.4	You know it makes me feel bad.
0:59.1	So I pretty much got off of it a while ago and I have to say I feel better. Right of course but sometimes
1:05.8	it feels like social media runs our lives. It's such a like powerful force. Yes but I think the
1:11.2	question is especially for teens and kids, is it a negative force?
1:17.0	Back in 2017, a psychologist at San Diego State University, her name is Gene Twangy, set off this firestorm in psychology. She studies
1:26.1	trends across generations and she looks at data going all the way back to the 1930s.
1:30.8	And when she looked at mental health data for teens, starting around 2011 or so, she was
1:37.3	shocked. Oh no, what shocked her? Well across the board she could see rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, they were all rising right around 2011, 2012.
1:49.0	And she had this hypothesis that the reason for this mental health crisis that she saw coming was
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