Study prompts concerns surrounding the mental health impact on kids from social media

 

According to the 2023 U.S Surgeon Generals Advisory Report on social media and youth mental health, social media has both positive and negative impacts on children and adolescents.  

This report prompted a study by security.org to see how parents feel about the impact social media is having on their children.  

Those results are pretty one-sided. 

Corey Wagner is a Senior Industry Analyst at security.org. 

“So, we found that 98% of the parents that are study, which is a very significant number, believe that social media is dangerous to users under age 18. And primarily, their top concern was their children being exposed to age-inappropriate content, which is you can find that on every platform, and they also had concerns about screen time and their mental health impacts.” 

Studies like these are prompting state legislators across the county to move forward in restricting social media access to persons under the age of 18.  

Montana has already banned TikTok in its totality, which has caused controversy and lawsuits.  

Corey Wagner tells us that according to their research, ten percent of parents are worried about their kids being exposed to predatory behavior on snapchat. 

“A lot of parents did have concerns especially about Snapchat. They felt like they couldn't monitor their kids behavior on that app in particular, and that is one where maybe predatory adults would be able to easily reach children, especially if their privacy settings aren't optimized.” 

Security.org

Parents Want Stricter Legislation to Protect Kids on Social Media (security.org)