Parenting eases social media-related mental health issues

WASHINGTON, DC — Teenagers who spend more time on social media have poorer mental health across a variety of measures, according to data from a new Gallup survey.

Yet the strength of a teen’s relationship with their parent is much more closely linked to their mental health than their social media habits. When adolescents report having a strong, loving relationship with their parents or guardians, their level of social media use no longer predicts mental health problems.

The data informs debates about the consequences of social media use.

Adolescents’ heavy social media use correlates with greater negative emotions

These results come from a Family and Adolescent Health Survey conducted June 26 to July 17 using the Gallup panel. Responses from 6,643 parents living with children aged 3 to 19 were included in the Mental Health and Parenting Survey, and 1,591 of the adolescents living with these parents also completed a mental health questionnaire, their relationships and activities. This survey estimates that American teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours per day across seven popular social media apps.

Adolescents were asked if they had felt a lot of sadness the day before the survey, as well as other negative emotions. They were also asked to rate their overall mental health, with responses of “very poor” or “poor” coded as demonstrating mental health problems. Parents were asked the same overall question about their teen, plus two additional questions about symptoms of depression and anxiety – measured by how often and how often their child seemed down, depressed, or hopeless. frequency he seemed nervous, anxious, or nervous. . Children were coded as having symptoms of depression or anxiety if their parent reported that these symptoms occurred regularly or all the time during the past 12 months.

Among teens, 37% say they spend five or more hours per day on the seven social media apps, 14% say they spend four to less than five hours, 26% say they spend two to less than four hours, and 23% say spend less than two hours. hours. Using these categories, higher social media use predicted significantly higher risk of mental health problems across all eight outcomes tested.

Teens who spend five or more hours a day on social media apps are much more likely to report feeling negative emotions than those who spend less than two hours a day.

For example, 26% of teens who regularly spend at least five hours a day on social media report feeling a lot of sadness “yesterday,” compared to 19% of those who spend less than two hours on social media. When it comes to feeling anger on a daily basis, the gap is even wider: 25% of adolescents who spend at least five hours on social networks say they feel a lot of anger, compared to 14% of those who spend there. less than two hours.

This trend is also reflected in overall mental health ratings reported by adolescents and their parents. Forty-one percent of teens say their mental health is poor or very poor if they use social media for five or more hours a day, compared to 23% of those who spend less than two hours a day who say the same. thing. Using parents’ reports of their adolescents’ mental health yields a similar relationship, although a smaller variance. Among teens who spend at least five hours on social media, 28% of parents say their teen’s mental health is poor or very poor, compared to 22% of parents whose teens use social media less than two hours a day .

Parents of heavy social media users are also more likely to report frequent symptoms of depression and anxiety in their teens.

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Gallup also collected data on parent reports of their teen’s suicidal tendencies and self-harm as well as data on current and future well-being directly from the teen. These elements and those mentioned above have been combined into a comprehensive mental health index, described in more detail in a report Gallup co-published with the Institute for Family Studies. This index is coded on a standardized scale, where the mean is zero and the standard deviation is one. The results show that adolescents who spend five or more hours per day score -0.08 standard deviation below the mean on mental health and those who spend less than two hours score 0.26 standard deviation above average. As noted in this report, the negative effects associated with the full mental health index appear to be seen for YouTube and TikTok, but for none of the other five apps tested, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WeChat and WhatsApp.

Mental health outcomes are worse among adolescents with weak parental relationships

The survey also included a summary item asking teens to rate their relationship with their parent or guardian on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is the weakest, least loving relationship they can imagine and 10 is the relationship the weakest and least loving one they could imagine. The Strongest And most magnet. Seventy percent of teens rate the relationship an 8 or higher, which is classified as strong for the purposes of this analysis.

Like Gallup Previously reportedthe strength of the parental relationship — in addition to parental supervision and regulation of screen time — suggests a much greater reduction in time spent on social networks.

Across all categories of social media use, mental health outcomes are significantly worse for adolescents who report a weak parental relationship than for those who report a strong relationship. The overall mental health index shows a maximum of -23 and a minimum of -59 for adolescents with a weak parental relationship. On the other hand, the index varies from 26 to 39 for those with a strong parental relationship.

Looking only at the group of adolescents with a strong parental relationship, the overall mental health index is not significantly different for those who use social media for five hours or more compared to those who use it for less than two hours . The same applies when the analysis is carried out for those who have a weak parental relationship.

More generally, only three of the 16 results tested show significant differences in the use of social media. These include youth-reported overall mental health (for both groups) and feelings of anger among adolescents with weak relationships. Furthermore, data suggest that mental health outcomes are similar for high and low social media users among youth with a strong parental relationship and among youth with a weak relationship.

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Conclusion

American public health agencies and academics have documented an alarming increase in mental health problems among adolescents in recent years, leading some say excessive use of social media is part of the problem.

In accordance with the research literature on the subject, the Gallup survey confirms that mental health problems are more serious among adolescents who use social media a lot. Yet these data also suggest that the strength of the parental relationship shows a more fundamental link to mental health and that adolescents who benefit from a strong, loving relationship with their guardian are much less likely to be harmed by heavy use social media than those who have it. not.

These findings do not constitute an in-depth analysis of the complex causal links that link mental health to social media use and other behaviors, but they provide additional evidence to inform parents, technology companies, and other interested parties of potential effects.

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