Social media blamed for mental health decline, headspace survey reveals

Young people are feeling the pressure of social media on their mental health — and it’s on the rise, according to a new survey by organisation headspace.

Young people have blamed social media for their deteriorating mental health amid a chronic shortage of medical professionals across the country.

Leading mental health organisation headspace spoke to 6000 young people aged 12-25 and found 57 per cent believe their mental health is getting worse, with 42 per cent citing social media as the main reason for the decline.

This is a significant increase from the previous 2018 headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey, where 37 per cent of young people named social media as the cause of declining mental health.

The second most common response was expectations from school, family and community (20 per cent).

Global issues (16 per cent), the COVID-19 pandemic (14 per cent) and work and study pressure (13 per cent) were also seen as significant factors impacting young people’s mental health.

headspace CEO Jason Trethowan.

“It’s clear from the research that social media is something young people feel is putting more and more pressure on them,” headspace CEO Jason Trethowan said.

“Spending too long on social media is associated with higher levels of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and psychological distress.”

Twenty-three NSW young people aged 24 and under suicided in January and February this year, according to NSW Health.

The state has lost 398 young people to suicide since 2019.

Mr Trethowan took aim at social media companies, saying they “need to understand the roles and responsibilities that come with their design in creating an addictive environment for young people”.

“When there is harmful content or potentially harmful content, social media companies need to remove this ASAP,” he said.

headspace has grown to 150 centres and is budgeted to increase to 164 by 2024, yet is suffering from a chronic shortage of workers.

Mr Trethowan has been lobbying both major parties in an effort to create a national scheme to attract psychology, social work and occupational therapy graduates.

While they have 53 graduates who started in March as part of a two-year program, they need 200 more.

“It’s not an uncommon thing in hospitals where you would say doctors and doctors-in-training, nurses and nurses-in-training,” he said.

“We did not have that equivalent in our system of community mental health services.

“We have heard the arguments about the age care workforce but we are very much aligned with the need for the youth mental health workforce.”

Charlize Mulholland, 18, spends about 20 hours per week on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter.

Charlize Mulholland, 18, says social media companies need to do more to protect young people.

The Year 12 student has lived experience of mental ill-health and says social media can have a detrimental impact on her.

She feels anxious when separated from her device, saying she feels compelled to know what’s going on the moment she gets a notification.

“It has been 11pm and the next thing it’s 3am and you can’t remember who you’ve texted or what you have looked at online,” she said.

“It’s easy to get stuck in a loop of watching sad or upsetting content.”

Miss Mulholland suffered harassment online and reported it to social media companies, yet there was no response.

“I’ve never heard of anyone reporting and then something actually being done about it by the social media companies,” she said.