Time to end the 'uncontrolled experiment' of social media on kids, scientists say

Pair say review of studies, other evidence, proves more countries need to do like Australia and keep kids offline

There is enough evidence going back far enough that it's reasonable to conclude social media platforms are responsible for population-level mental health harms. 

Social psychologists and social media analysts Jonathan Haidt and Zachary Rausch from New York University's Stern School of Business drew that conclusion in chapter three of the UN, Oxford University, and Gallup 2026 World Happiness Report.

The pair didn't do their own research for their WHR contribution, mind you. Their report is instead a metastudy of prior research into the mental health effects of social media on adolescents, defined in their paper as those between age 10 and 19. They reviewed comments from kids, parents, teachers, and clinicians. They also perused public documents from social media companies and academic studies. 

"The preponderance of the evidence points to this conclusion: social media is not safe for adolescents," the pair decided. 

Haidt and Rausch pull on data from a variety of studies to show that, when asked, young people say social media is harmful and they regret their level of engagement with it, while Gen Z kids in particular describe the levels of harms they're exposed to on social media as "high." Parents, on the other hand, largely fear social media and feel it's going to harm their children, and those harms may be validated by educators who believe the same. 

The evidence from social media firms that proves they know their products are harmful, meanwhile, is plentiful. 

The pair cite internal reports from Meta showiing it knew Facebook and Instagram were harmful to kids' mental health but allegedly buried the reports, quotations from TikTok executives and internal docs presented in court, as well as similar documentation from Snap.

As for academic studies, Haidt and Rausch say that academic reports back up anecdotal data from kids, parents, and teachers in suggesting real links between social media and mental health problems.

Cross-sectional studies indicate heavy users are at elevated risk for depression, they note, while longitudinal studies indicate that social media use when young predicts depressive symptoms later. Just as well, the pair said, experiments that reduce social media time for adolescents generally find that they report being happier.

All of that evidence, the pair said, suggests on preponderance that social media is harmful to adolescents. As for proving social media's harms reach the population level - well, that requires a bit more extrapolation. 

To get there, Haidt and Rausch mostly estimate harm levels based on study results and population totals.

The pair assume that there are around 39 million adolescents in the US based on 2023 population demographics, and from there, reach the conclusion that the numbers from the studies they cite elsewhere in their writeup are indicative of the entire US population.

Based on that, they assume that some four million adolescents are experiencing social media addiction issues, while 5.7 million adolescents receive unwanted sexual advances in a given week. 

Even if that is a bit of an odd way to frame the argument, the pair said the point they're trying to make is valid.

"Our point is that the direct harms from social media are not just occasional events or freak  accidents that are happening to a few hundred adolescents each year," they said. 

Addressing this issue, the pair argue, requires more countries to go Australia's route and ban kids from social media entirely until their young brains are mature enough to handle it, regulating the use of the platforms like tobacco and alcohol. 

"Countries around the world ran a giant uncontrolled experiment on their own children in the 2010s by giving them smartphones and social media accounts," the pair charge. "The available evidence suggests that the experiment has harmed them.  It is time to call it off." ®