Fostering kids’ fear and self-loathing in the social media age

Psychologists increasingly are convinced that social media – and Instagram in particular – has been a key driver of girls’ declining mental health.

The rate of self-harm in Australian girls is rising.

Statistics collected by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that in the decade from 2009 to 2019 there was a 46 per cent increase in the rate of hospitalisation for girls who had self-harmed, with the rate of hospitalisation for very young girls (under 14) increasing threefold.

Hospitalisations for self-harm are the mere tip of the iceberg, however. Estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing indicate that a total of 393,700 people self-harmed across the past 12 months. Of these, most (271,000) were female, with one in 14 females aged 16 to 34 reporting self-harm in the past 12 months.

A recent study titled The Kids Are Not Alright: Differential Trends in Mental Ill-Health in Australia, published by the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic & Social Research, found that 20 years ago 9.6 per cent of those aged 15 and older had a mental or behavioural disorder, whereas today it is 21.4 per cent. This change is primarily being driven by those born after 1990.

Such trends are not unique to Australia. In a recently released report by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention it was found that a shocking one in three American girls had contemplated suicide in 2021. Similar trends have been observed in Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Why is this happening? Writing in Time magazine about the American situation, San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge points out that while Covid lockdowns certainly have not helped, the crisis in teen girls’ mental health has been developing since 2012. Indeed, Twenge’s augural Atlantic article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” was published in 2017 – two years before the world encountered Covid.

Generational changes in mental health are complex and difficult to study. Unlike randomised controlled trials, cohort studies suffer from methodological limitations that make it difficult to tease apart variables. Nevertheless, psychologists such as Twenge increasingly are convinced that social media – and Instagram in particular – has been a key driver of girls’ declining mental health.

To understand the impact of social media, I think it helps to remember what it was like to grow up without it.

As an elder millennial, I am old enough to remember a time of youthful freedom before Facebook, Instagram and the ubiquitous iPhone. In the halcyon days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, we kids would catch public transport to the city without our parents being able to reach us on a mobile phone. If we missed the train home, or got into some kind of trouble, we simply would call our parents from the payphone. (If we ran out of money, we could dial 1800-Reverse.)

After school, our bedrooms were a sanctuary to listen to music (usually grunge) and retreat from the pressures of the classroom. Life was simple.

Today, young kids have no such luxuries. Rarely is a child allowed on public transport without a phone or tracking device. When kids get into the habit of texting each other, they are bombarded with intrusive notifications. If a friend receives a text and doesn’t reply straight away, the result is anxiety and agitation.

No longer are bedrooms safe havens from the pressures of school. The dramas of the schoolyard follow kids home. Friendships organise around group chats, ensuring that kids are plugged into their social world 24/7. To join these chat groups opens one up to endless distraction, yet to avoid them condemns one to social exclusion. Management of an online social life is, at a minimum, exhausting.

Heavy social media use is associated with increased loneliness, disrupted sleep, anxiety and depression. For girls, in particular, Instagram promotes low self-esteem and body image issues, a finding confirmed by Facebook’s own research.

But while we know that heavy use can be harmful, the real risk of social media may be that it tricks us into thinking that online friendships can replace the real thing.

Social interactions between human beings are incredibly rich and complex. When we interact with friends and strangers we look for cues in body language, facial expression, vocal tone and eye contact. When an interaction goes well, we are flooded with feelings of belonging and wellbeing. When an interaction goes awry, we must learn the techniques of repair and reconciliation. All of this requires time, attention and effort, which cannot be substituted with text and emojis on a screen.

But we invest this time and effort because the rewards are so great. As teens, if we invest time in homework and study, we lay the foundations for a life of work and productivity. Similarly, when we invest in our real-world interactions, we lay the foundations for future connection and intimacy.

If we miss out on these formative experiences because we are glued to our screens, we may never learn the skills required to lead fulfilling lives. Perhaps the biggest risk of social media is that it is stunting the social development of an entire generation.

Claire Lehmann is founding editor of online magazine Quillette.