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Australia’s plan to ban under 16s from social media is yet another messy global fight over science
- Governments worldwide are restricting teenagers’ access to smartphones and social media amidst a scientific debate on whether these technologies actually harm their mental health.
- The debate stemmed from critics of the book “The Anxious Generation” which blamed the rise of youth mental illness on smartphones and social media without providing proof.
- Studies on the effects of social media on mental health produce a variety of results, making it unclear whether social media use is inherently bad.
- The quality of the scientific evidence in these studies is unreliable due to the specific narrow questions addressed and the biases that come from asking people to self-report their mental health.
- There is no evidence that reducing social media use can benefit teenagers' mental health.
- Furthermore, studies focused on specific platforms do not consider social media use as a whole and almost never define the term “social media” properly.
- Moreover, studies at the level of individual behavioural changes to social media does not entirely reflect social media’s fundamental characteristics and behaviours.
- As policymakers continue to restrict teenagers' access to social media, there remains much to learn about whether it does have an impact on mental health.
- With the current evidence, it is almost impossible to know whether social media has any correlation with teenage mental health.
- Therefore, the teens’ social media ban is presenting policymakers with a particularly difficult problem rooted in science’s messy uncertainties.
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