Where is the evidence that social media harms kids?

here’s broad agreement that young people are more depressed and anxious. There’s also agreement that they spend a lot of time on social media. But does this imply cause and effect?

The War on Social Media is on. Australia has banned social media use by anyone under the age of 16. The EU is trying to fine X for insufficiently censoring social media posts. The UK has moved to the next phase, arresting record numbers of people for online comments (sources say over 12,000 arrests per year). The inaptly named Online Safety Act affects not only social media but all media, and their credibility is suffering.

These actions will likely fail or be repealed as unworkable, but the goal is clear: blocking speech is the first step in forcing changes the people don’t want. To create a dictatorship, you must first control speech.

The hysteria about excessive use of social media by children mimics the earlier hysteria about TV and pornography. Now the panic is shifting from cell phones to AI. The solution will be to ban it. But there is no credible scientific evidence that any of these things is a problem. As always, “for the children” is just an excuse.

The Surgeon General's Report

The 2023 US Surgeon General’s Advisory report admitted there was insufficient evidence for any hard conclusion. It then dove into the most unscientific speculation about “changes” in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex I’ve ever seen. It said it “could” increase sensitivity to social rewards and punishments. That word—‘could’—is a tip-off. It makes any statement true.

The report said social media could be beneficial, using language that nowadays sounds ludicrous:

For example, studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support.

No wonder the download page includes a trigger warning. Think of all the poor lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, and intersex children in Australia! These days, trigger warnings also seem archaic. It seems that Trigger is now dead.

Clinical trials are needed

Science isn’t helping. Articles at the usual sites (Psychology Today, APA, and UNICEF) are hopelessly political. Even JHU says social media are beneficial by “affirming sexual identities.”

Most scientific articles about cell phones discuss weird health problems, such as unilateral acne, temporo­mandib­ular disorders, and injuries from people walking into stationary objects. There are even a few still claiming “radiation injury” from cell phones. Only 295 articles mention “cell phone usage,” “social media usage,” or “smartphone usage” in the title. I found no controlled clinical trials, a minimal requirement for establishing causation. The rest are correlational studies, or observational studies from China, where the Internet is highly restricted. Some say depression and lack of social support cause social media use; some say the reverse.

The term “addiction,” a common term in both popular and science media, is inapplicable. Kids could stop in a minute with no withdrawal symptoms if something more interesting came along. Indeed, a Sci Rep article^[1] by Ian Anderson and Wendy Wood says that social media ‘addiction’ is overestimated due to self-diagnosis—not surprisingly, the users aren’t using standard diagnostic criteria—and it is costly because it causes ‘self-blame’ and discourages change.

[T]he perception of addiction likely arises from popular media’s frequent labeling of social media as addictive (vs. habit forming). . . .

Study 2 (N = 824) demonstrated experimentally that framing frequent Instagram use as an addiction has deleterious consequences for user self-efficacy, including reducing perceived control over social media use and increasing self-blame for overuse. In addition, misperceiving excessive social media use as addictive potentially diverts users from effective strategies that could be used to curb overuse habits.

The authors had to exclude anyone who used Instagram more than 14 hours a day. If only we could get ’em to read the scientific literature 14 hours a day instead, what would they achieve . . . sigh . . . .

Ditch everything blue

If lack of sleep is the problem, amber-tinted blue blockers will reduce (though not eliminate) the blue light from screens that is thought to disrupt sleep. Apps that turn off the blue channel electronically are better. But a better question is: why are they not watching TV? Reading newspapers? Outside riding their bikes? I never thought the day would come when we’d be begging kids to watch more TV. Be careful what you ask for. . . .

The conclusion must be that social media provide something they can’t get elsewhere. Direct interaction with others is discouraged. TV and newspapers are now unwatchable and untrustworthy. Take away playground time, drug them for fidgeting, bust their parents for allowing them to walk down the street, prevent them from riding bicycles, and what else will they do? Read The Guardian? Watch TV? As if! (Do they still say that?)

As for mainstream news sites, here’s a news flash: if you’re behind a paywall, you’re competing with TikTok—and losing. Social media is free. Kids read social media because they have no choice. Nature says Australia will be an ‘experiment,’ but I have a better one: let them play outside for a year and see what happens.

dec 11 2025