The Australian government recently passed legislation banning under-16-year-olds from using social media—with no exemption for parental consent. This is the world’s strictest law regarding children’s social media use. It aims to protect children from the harms of Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and others—to reach beyond the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 and the proposed “Kids’ Online Safety Act” (KOSA) in the United States.
Without exception, children are always worth protecting. As an Australian psychiatrist, my hope is that my job might become easier in the future due to this law, which takes effect next year. This legislation was enacted on the basis of growing public awareness and evidence about the harms of social media use. As the BBC explained: “The central idea behind the [Australian] government’s policy … is that there’s a causal link between social media and declining mental health.”
But does social media use cause a decline in mental health? The idea is disputed, debated, politicized, and contested. To show causality, we need to go beyond showing that two things are linked. Owning an ashtray, for example, is linked with having lung cancer and heart disease, but the link is not causal.
That mental health declines as social media use increases is borne out in studies and is almost unquestioned. But mental health also declines with the increase in divorce rates, drug and alcohol use, income disparity, urbanisation, and more. Is there evidence that points directly to social media causing a decline in mental health?
Over the past decade, many studies show that excessive social media use is harmful, and that many people, including adolescents, are addicted. Social media-fueled comparisons and unreal expectations contribute to depression and anxiety. Depression rates are soaring, even in young children. Anxiety rates have increased as well, even in the young. Addiction rates are up, and suicide rates continue to rise in the U.S. and Australia. In the U.S., over a five-year period, the suicide rate in 10-14 year old females increased 300 percent. Social media and screen anonymity help fuel cyber-bullying: social exclusion, spreading of rumors, and character assassination.1 Many young women, but also young men, have killed themselves in this context. It’s tragic.
Screens themselves, when used properly, are not harmful to children, per se. Learning too much history or math online is unlikely to cause problems, but social media’s comparisons, high expectations, sexual exploitation, and bullying can be devastating.
Social media addiction leads to dissatisfaction, low self-esteem and emptiness through dopamine overdose and subsequent depletion.2 Internet addiction leads to having less friends and being lonely; 68% of young people sleep with their cell phones within reach and check their feeds on waking up. This has become a new normal. Younger people are now “more comfortable being online than at a party [because], as one young person explained, “we like our smartphones more than we like actual people.”
Is it any wonder that Silicon Valley CEOs ban their own children from social media? When did a phone become more fun than parties and people?
Less engagement with close people adversely impacts brain chemicals and can lead to social phobia, anxiety, depression, and even suicide.
For answers, let’s go inside the brain. The brain adapts towards predictable, simple screen algorithms and away from spontaneous, complex real interactions with human beings. (A party is a gathering of spontaneous, complex human beings in real life; online engagement is virtual and predictable.)
Most significant is a 2018 study by Christian Montag and team. The study found a causal link between social media use and shrinkage of the brain’s anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG), the home of empathy. This merits explanation.
The study graded 61 participants on their social media usage. It found the greater the social media use, the greater the ACG shrinkage. The social media use and ACG shrinkage didn’t just occur together, they showed a dose-response link: the more social media use, the more damage to the ACG. This is a standard for causality. It’s like proving that the more cigarettes you smoke, the higher your chances of contracting lung cancer and heart disease (which is indeed the case). This is significant.
The study demonstrated damage to the ACG, and this suggests a mechanism for a decline in mental health. The ACG is, broadly speaking, where we experience empathy-connection with others. Shrinkage means less empathy, which leads to a person having less friends, enjoying less time with real people, making less eye contact, and feeling less connected. That’s the state of many young people today. The implication is that the empathy that humans evolved over tens of thousands of years to help socialization is quickly being eroded because it’s not being used enough. Less empathy means less people connection.
Good relationships strongly protect mental health. Less engagement with close people adversely impacts brain chemicals and can lead to social phobia, anxiety, depression, and even suicide.3 To get over loneliness, adolescents turn to social media rather than to friends. This creates a negative, vicious cycle. Australia’s ban for under-16-year-olds could help circumvent these negative repercussions.
Banning social media for children under 16 begins to make sense as we consider this evidence. The World Health Organization, for instance, recommends keeping babies away from screens entirely for the first year of life, and to allow less than an hour daily until five years old. That’s to protect their brains. Babies and children need to be around people to develop empathy. Importantly, no study shows that excessive social media use is beneficial to children’s brains.
As a psychiatrist, the sum of the scientific evidence tells me this: social media use adversely impacts the brain to affect our empathy and relationships leading to a decline in mental health. The sheer time spent on screens keeps us from the human interaction we need. Social media platforms have the capacity to prey on young minds by encouraging them to compare themselves to others, misshaping their expectations, exposing them to predators, and leaving them vulnerable to sexual and commercial exploitation.
To help combat this situation in the United States, the Institute of Family Studies launched the Family First Technology Initiative. The aim is to help families by providing sound social media recommendations for children.
Here in Australia, I advocate for social media restraint in younger people, working people, and people who want to enjoy their friendships and romantic relationships. I have a passion for keeping young brains healthy, so I make recommendations, such as in this YouTube video.
Australia has taken a powerful step in protecting young people’s mental well-being. The rest of the world would do well to follow our lead. The U.S. Congress passing KOSA as soon as possible would be a very helpful next step in following the scientific evidence. This is a crucial area of research for our children and for the future.
Christian Heim is a clinical psychiatrist, a clinical director of mental health services, and a senior lecturer at The University of Queensland.
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2. Oskenbay, Fariza, et al. “Addictive behavior among adolescents.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 171 (2015): 406-411. Jan, Muqaddas, Sanobia Soomro, and Nawaz Ahmad. “Impact of social media on self-esteem.” European Scientific Journal 13.23 (2017): 329-341. Vogel, Erin A., et al. “Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem.” Psychology of popular media culture 3.4 (2014): 206. Hawi, Nazir S., and Maya Samaha. “The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students.” Social Science Computer Review 35.5 (2017): 576-586. Cools, Roshan. “Chemistry of the adaptive mind: lessons from dopamine.” Neuron 104.1 (2019): 113-131. Montag, Christian, et al. “How to overcome taxonomical problems in the study of Internet use disorders and what to do with “smartphone addiction?” Journal of Behavioral Addictions 9.4 (2021): 908-914.
3. Tsai, Tsung-Yu, et al. “The interaction of oxytocin and social support, loneliness, and cortisol level in major depression.” Clinical Psychopharmacology and Neuroscience 17.4 (2019): 487. Launay, Jacques, and Eiluned Pearce. “Singing as an Evolved Behavior for Social Bonding: The Ice-Breaker Effect, Beta-Endorphins, and Groups of More than 150 People.” The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing. Routledge, 2020. 136-145. Baixauli Gallego, Elena. “Happiness: role of dopamine and serotonin on mood and negative emotions.” Emergency Medicine (Los Angeles), 2017, vol. 6, num. 2, p. 33-51 (2017).