Psychology group says infinite scrolling and other social media features are “particularly risky” for young people’s mental health

A leading psychology group is calling on tech companies and lawmakers to take stronger measures to protect teens’ mental health, arguing that social media platforms are built for adults and are “inherently not suitable for young people.”

Social media features like infinite scrolling and push notifications are “particularly risky” for young people, whose developing brains are less able to disengage from addictive experiences and are more sensitive to distractions, the American Psychological Association wrote in a statement. . report released Tuesday.

But age restrictions on social media platforms alone do not fully address the dangers, especially since many children easily find workarounds to these limits. Instead, social media companies need to make fundamental design changes, the group said in its report.

“Platforms seem to be designed to keep kids engaged for as long as possible, to keep them there. And children simply are not able to resist these urges as effectively as adults,” APA Chief Scientific Officer Mitch Prinstein said in a telephone interview. He added that more than half of teenagers report at least one symptom of clinical addiction on social media.

“The fact that this is interfering with their personal interactions, the time they should be doing their schoolwork, and — most importantly — their sleep has really important implications,” Prinstein said.

The report did not offer specific changes that social media companies can implement. Prinstein suggested that one option could be to change the default experience for children’s social media accounts, with functions such as infinite scrolling or alerts turned off.

The report comes nearly a year after the APA issued a landmark health advice on social media use in adolescence, which recognized that social media can be beneficial when it connects young people with peers who experience similar types of adversity offline. The statement urged social media platforms to minimize teens’ online exposure to cyberbullying and cyberhate, among other recommendations.

But technology companies have made “few significant changes” since the statement was released last May, the APA report says, and no federal policies have been adopted.

A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, disputed the claim that there have been no changes instituted on its platforms recently. Last year, Meta started showing teens a notification when they spend 20 minutes on Facebook and added parental supervision tools that let parents schedule Facebook breaks for their teens, according to a list of Meta Resources for Parents and Teens. Meta has also started hiding more results in the Instagram search engine related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and launched late-night “nudges” that encourage teens to close the app when it’s too late.

Prinstein said more is needed.

“While some platforms have experimented with modest changes, this is not enough to ensure the safety of children,” he said.

TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tuesday’s report comes amid broader concern about the effects of social media on young people. In March, Florida passed a law that prohibits children under 14 from having social media accounts and requires parental consent for ages 14 and 15. protect minors from social media addiction. Dozens of states sued Meta, according to what they say, are misleading characteristics that harm the mental health of children and adolescents.

And last month, a book was published by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt that argues that smartphones and social media have created a “phone-based childhood,” causing teenage rates of anxiety, depression and self-harm to soar.

The book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Driving an Epidemic of Mental Illness” has been hotly debated. Although it has your detractorsit instantly became a bestseller.

Prinstein said it’s up to tech companies to protect younger users, but parents can help too. He recommended that all devices in a family’s home be placed on top of the fridge by 9pm every night to help children – and parents – get the sleep they need. He also said there is no harm in limiting or delaying a child’s use of social media.

“We have no data to suggest that children suffer negative consequences if they delay their use of social media, or if their parents set it to half an hour a day, or an hour a day,” he said.

“In fact, kids tell us anecdotally that they like being able to blame their parents and say, ‘Sorry, my parents won’t let me stay more than an hour, so I have to leave,'” he added. “It kind of which gives them relief.”