The average 17 year-old spends almost 6h per day on social media. That's 42h per week, and 91 days per year. If this continues, we can expect to lose 2 decades of our life to endless scrolling.
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The mental health impact on young people
Children who spend 3+ hours per day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including depression and anxiety.
"We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis,…social media is an important driver of that crisis.”
Vivek Murthy
US Surgeon General
The real life impact: Molly Russell
Molly, aged 14, from Harrow, north west London, took her own life after being exposed to a stream of dark, depressing content on social media despite showing no obvious signs of serious mental health illness. She would be celebrating her 22nd Birthday this year. An inquest concluded she ended her life while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.
In many ways Molly had the interests and hobbies of a typical teenager: the musical Hamilton, the rock band 5 Seconds of Summer, the lead role in her school show. ''She was a positive, happy, bright young lady who was indeed destined to do good.''
It was on Instagram that Molly viewed some of the most disturbing pieces of content, including a montage of graphic videos containing clips relating to suicide, depression and self-harm set to music. Some videos contained scenes drawn from film and TV, including 13 Reasons Why, a US drama about a teenager’s suicide that contained episodes rated 15 or 18 in the UK. In total, Molly viewed 138 videos and 2100 posts relating to suicide and self-harm content.
In January 2019, the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell said, “I have no doubt that Instagram helped kill my daughter.” Social media companies are still pushing "harmful content to literally millions of young people".
"Social media is more addictive than drugs and alcohol, and it’s more dangerous because it’s normalised and there are no restrictions to it.”
Prince Harry
The Duke of Sussex
The wider impact of social media on society
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Gen Z'sattention span for advertisements is 1.3s, compared with 12 secondsaverage attention span in 2000.
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55% of global millennials say they are dissatisfied with democracy, whereas under half of Generation X felt the same way at that age.
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1/5 of young men believe moves to promote equal rights for women in the last few decades have had a negative or very negative impact, compared with 7% of young women.
Growing Gender Divide: The rise of Andrew Tate
A wide ideology gap is opening up between young men and women in countries across the world
Political ideology of 18-29s (% liberal minus % conservative), by sex.
After decades where the sexes were equally spread across liberal and conservative world views, in just six years, women aged 18-29 have become 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. This dramatic distancing of genders on the political spectrum coincides with social media becoming available on mobile (2009). In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.
The need to educate
Young children are exposed to the harms of social media earlier than ever because parents and carers are dangerously unaware of the damage it causes their children. 1/5 toddlers (3-4 year olds) now own a device which can access social media platforms.
38% of aged 5-7 regularly access social media in the UK.
1/3 of parents know the correct minimum age for social media platforms.
57% of parents of 5-15s think being online in general is a good thing for their child.
"No self-discipline can beat the addictive design we are all subject to today. Problematic smartphones use affects attention span and brain development from a young age. This is one of the challenges of our time. If we do not intervene now, this will have an enormous impact on generations to come. We already have strong health and safety rules for food, alcohol and tobacco to protect our health. The EU must now tackle addictive design!”
Kim van Sparrentak
Member of the European Parliament
