Social Media is at the Heart of the Relational Crisis Facing Our Kids Today

Two days ago, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a formal warning about the negative effects of social media on the mental health of children and teens up to 17 years of age. Dr. Virvek Murthy stated that although there are some benefits of social media, for developing brains, children and teens are vulnerable to the harms of social media, which outweighs its positives. These harms include but are not limited to being exposed to material that they are not yet able to make developmental use of (i.e. violent or sexual imagery) and harmful social interactions (i.e. bullying and harassment). 

It’s Not Too Soon To See That Social Media Hurts Kids

Dr. Murthy called for further research and is putting a Surgeon General’s Warning on social media for minors until we can learn more about the impact and how to best deal with it. 

The reception to this warning has been mixed. Some say his warning is too broad and does ont give parents enough actionable direction. Others, including a psychology professor, Chris Fergeson, complained that there is no “good evidence” to support the claims” that Dr. Murthy is making. 

As a therapist, parent, and well, as a human who has been around in the past decade, I was surprised to read some content from naysayers. My first thought was, have these folks been around kids lately? Even if the evidence does not exist in the black-and-white format of studies just yet, I have found that a lot of the hypothesized harms for kids prove to be true IRL. By and large, many kids have been more isolated, more depressed, and their attention spans and focus have plummeted.

Remote Socialization Has Its Limits

One key root cause to many of the ways social media hurts kids comes down to the distance that exists in online relationships. I will define “distance” in this context in two ways. The first is that liking someone’s post or commenting on their video is not the same as having a close, connected, back-and-forth conversation with them. Many posts and responses are also highly curated so there can be some authenticity lost. 

Additionally, interacting on a screen is in a literal sense distant. There is an actual space between you and the other person and there are certain things that exist IRL that cannot be translated over a screen, such as the nuances of body language and touch.

As a therapist, human connections and relationships are always at the forefront of my mind. Back in 2020 when COVID hit, I was so relieved to find that remote therapy actually worked. I was so glad to stay connected to my patients at a time where we were required to be apart. I was even more relieved just a year later when I got my vaccine and began seeing patients in person again in my office. 

Being back in person was overwhelming at first. Existing away from others for so long allowed me to appreciate and fully take in how intimate it is to sit in a room with someone. There is so much information present when you are sitting with someone else. Truly, nothing compares to the in-person experience. In early COVID days, some patients even expressed a feeling of relief at the distance, as if it felt more protective to be remote rather than in person. This opened up opportunities for us to talk about vulnerability and understand the drive between their desire to hide.

Distance Increases Bullying and Self Esteem Issues

Just like for my patients, social media and remote modes of communication was a literal lifeline for kids and teens old enough to use them. Thrust into isolation during a crucial part of social development, the fact that these kids could access each other was a downright miracle. As the world opened back up, the reliance and comfort zone of these online ways of communicating with others remain, leaving many kids doing the bulk of their socializing online in this distanced format.

The distance is absolutely relevant to the extreme bullying that takes place online in addition to the impact social media has on self esteem and body image. Bullying and kids not being nice to each other has been around forever but if you add the ingredient of distance, it’s like adding gasoline to a fire. The emotional distance that exists online takes some of the edge off of not being nice. If you are in person with someone, you are more likely to take in their human-ism and you are more likely to be impacted if you see them hurt. 

Online platforms additionally give kids the opportunity to hide or be cruel in anonymous ways to avoid consequences, which makes them less likely to be conservatised by those concerns. The privacy and control that kids have over what they put out into the world online also adds to the impact on kids and teen’s self esteem and body image. Carefully curated images and posts paint a picture of kids carrying out very idealized and unrealistic lives, leaving their peers to feel inadequate. Distance is relevant here, as well. Peers have distance around what each other’s realities are and as a result feel alien, isolated, and as if they are not measuring up. 

It was hard enough being a kid and especially a teen before social media. However, we are seeing firsthand an entire generation of kids having all of the issues we dealt with growing up amplified exponentially. 

So, What Can Parents Do?

Coming back to the Surgeon General’s warning about social media, even more importantly than limiting social media, I would encourage the adults in kids' lives to ensure that whatever social media exposure their kids are having is balanced by IRL social interactions. Real time connection with peers is essential to development and well-being. 

In a perfect world, kids and teens would have very little social media exposure but that may feel unrealistic in the present moment for families. It’s hard to tell your kid no to something that has been very present in their life and continues to be widespread in their friends’ lives. The way to enact change in this respect needs to be in communities with parents talking to other parents about their concerns and this dilemma that is facing us all. The more parents that get on board with setting limits, the easier it will be on both the kids and the parents to feel like this is a movement that is not happening in isolation.