Teenagers who spend five or more hours per day on social media are 60% more likely to experience suicidal thoughts or harm themselves, according to a new report.
The report, developed by the Institute for Family Studies and Gallup, also showed that those same teenagers are 2.8 times more likely to have negative body image and 30% more likely to report sadness.
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American teenagers spend about 4.8 hours on average per day on social media, the survey found, which is a significant increase from the amount of time they spend watching television, pursuing hobbies, playing video games, and completing homework.
A staggeringly low 10.5% of teenagers spend an hour or less per day on social media, while 30% spend six hours or more.
While the study found that suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and sadness were only associated with YouTube and TikTok, body image issues were associated with those two platforms as well as Instagram and WhatsApp.
Jonathan Rothwell, the report's author, Gallup principal economist, and Brookings Institution senior fellow, noted that the changes are "small" relative to the steep decline in mental health over the past several years, but says the findings "confirm the fears of social media critics."
"As some scholars have argued, low life satisfaction or other mental health problems may drive teenagers with the greatest mental health problems to social media use as a form of escapism," Rothwell wrote. "That behavior would produce the patterns described above, even if social media did not have any consistent effects on mental health."
On the other side of the coin, children who have more self-control or whose parents restrict their screen time and maintain strong familial relationships spend significantly less time on social media platforms.
The study looked into traits like conscientiousness and found that teenagers who rank highly spend around 1.2 hours less per day than their less conscientious peers. Adolescents with parents who restrict their use spend around 1.7 hours less per day than teenagers with less restrictive parents.
"Youth who report a stronger and more loving relationship with their caregivers and spend less time unsupervised also use social media less frequently," Rothwell wrote. "Screen time use has no association with an index of mental health problems for teens who demonstrate high levels of self-control and enjoy a strong relationship with parents who supervise them — a minority of American teens. Yet even teens with these characteristics show greater risk of body image issues if they are heavy users of social media."
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This study comes as U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory warning Americans about the profound negative effects of social media on the mental health of young people.
"Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment," Murthy said. "And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address.”