Newsweek Features Dr. Lisa Hinkelman
Teens Willing To Give Parents Control of Their Social Media
Published on November 3, 2023 by Suzanne Blake. Read full story here.
Many teens use social media to connect with their friends and the outside world, but a large number of young people now support having parental consent requirements as the dark side of social media takes a toll on their mental health.
In a new Pew Research poll of nearly 1,500 teens and parents, teens were more likely to support parental consent for minors to create social media accounts than oppose it. Roughly half, or 46 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 supported this measure, while only 25 percent opposed it.
And even more teens, 56 percent, supported age verification to use social media platforms, which have widely been linked to mental health issues in children.
Why are Teens Supporting Parental Monitoring of Social Media?
Jill Ehrenreich-May, a psychology professor at the University of Miami and expert on adolescent anxiety and depression, said the evidence is clear that social media harms teens' mental health, with higher rates of anxiety and depression linked with increased usage.
"Use of social media also may increase the likelihood that teens would be exposed to violent or inappropriate images that may be difficult to cope with effectively," Ehrenreich-May told Newsweek. "Just like car seats and seat belts increase the safety of children and adolescents in vehicles, putting safety precautions in place to mitigate the negative impacts of social media seems important in terms of public health and general well-being on a population level."
In 2017, 85 percent of teens used social media daily, and in 2022, that number had reached 95 percent. This is in stark contrast to 2009, when only around half used it daily, according to the Pew Research Center.
At the same time social media use by teens skyrocketed, teenagers found themselves at the precipice of a mental health crisis that hadn't been observed in previous generations.
The number of young adults and teenagers reporting negative psychological symptoms soared for those born in 1995 or later, and the greatest spike occurred in 2011, which is roughly when social media became prevalent across society, experts say.
The lack of age verification for social media platforms also opens teens to the risk of being targeted by sexual predators.
"It is sadly becoming a common story that minors are having sexual conversations with adults because there is no age verification," Laurel Wiers, a therapist at Lighthouse Counseling, told Newsweek.
"The lack of age verification opens doors to predators and sexual offenders. The natural relational immaturity, inherent in being an adolescent, often mistakes predatory interest for genuine relational interest. Lack of consent by parents and lack of age verification creates the perfect storm for a teen to be taken advantage of."
As for the reasons why teens would support restrictions on themselves, there's growing evidence and awareness in teens themselves about the negative impacts social media can have.
"Teens, especially older teens who have 'grown up' on social media, have likely had the opportunity to see many instances of social media that has gone wrong for themselves or for their friends," Lisa Hinkelman, the founder and CEO of Ruling Our eXperiences and principal investigator of The Girls' Index, told Newsweek.
The Girls' Index found a staggering connection between social media use and lower confidence in teenage girls. And rates of extreme sadness and depression increased for girls in every grade alongside their social media usage.
"Their experiences are beginning to reveal to them the various ways that social media has impacted their relationships, confidence, body image and decisions and they don't want that same experience for their younger peers or siblings," Hinkelman said.
In a similar Pew Research study from 2022, 38 percent of teens said they felt overwhelmed by the drama they see on social media. Meanwhile, 31 percent said they felt pressure to post content that gets a lot of likes and comments, and 23 percent said the platforms make them feel worse about their own life.
The harms from social media were more apparent in teen girls, of which 45 percent said they felt overwhelmed by the drama, and 28 percent said they felt worse about their own lives, compared to just 18 percent of boys.
Parents were even more likely to note the risks of social media usage, with 81 percent of U.S. adults supporting parental consent requirements for minors to create accounts. Almost 70 percent of adults also supported instituting limits on how much time minors can spend on social media sites, the Pew study found.
Concerns over the impact of social media are increasing, with more than 40 states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for using addictive features that harm children's mental health.