Yes, social media could be making your kids depressed, study finds
Any potential link between social media use and kids' mental health often comes down to a what-came-first conundrum: does more time glued to TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram make youth more depressed, or are distressed kids just more likely to spend more time on social media?
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Researchers who followed nearly 12,000 children found the more time nine- and 10-year-olds spend engaged with social media, the more depressive symptoms they have a year or two years later.
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Kids' social media use soared, on average, from seven to 73 minutes per day, over the three years of the study, and their depressive symptoms rose by 35 per cent, according to the paper, published in JAMA Network Open.
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It's not clear why. However, adolescence can make for a 'critical period of vulnerability during which social media exposure may have lasting implications for mental health,' the researchers wrote.
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'As a father of two young kids, I know that simply telling children to 'get off your phone' doesn't really work,' Nagata said.
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'Parents can lead by example with open, nonjudgmental questions about screen use,' he said. 'Setting screen-free times for the whole family, such as during meals or before bed, can help build healthier habits for everyone, including adults.'
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The researchers used data from an ongoing study spanning 21 sites, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the biggest longitudinal study — meaning it's following young people over multiple time points — of adolescent health, brain and cognitive development in the U.S. The study recruited children aged nine to 10 from October 2016 to October 2018, and followed them through 2022, when they were 12 to 13.
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Lack of access to professional help has more young people turning to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to self-diagnose mental-health issues. It's a trend that deeply concerns professionals, who fear misdiagnoses — or worse Using social media to self-diagnose mental-health issues is a trend that deeply concerns professionals, who fear misdiagnoses — or worse. Photo by Chinnapong / Getty Images During a visit to a friend's place, Zack Plourd found his friend's medication for Adderall, one of the most common medications for ADHD or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. 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Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors While Plourd had never sought a prescription for his self-diagnosed ADHD, he decided to try the Adderall. To his surprise, it helped with symptoms he'd struggled with, such as lack of focus, rambling when talking, and the constant need to keep his brain stimulated. So he asked his doctor for a prescription. As a result, he said, 'I can think. I can exist. I can do things now.' Plourd has self-diagnosed for years, based on content he's seen online and his real-life conversations. One of the first signs he identified with was people with ADHD talking about taking stimulants, such as caffeine, to focus. TikTok has thousands of videos that describe the habits of people with ADHD. Advice and clips on how to manage these habits and overcome the hardships of living with ADHD can be seen on several social media platforms. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Whenever Plourd sees these videos, he relates: 'I have those things. I do those things.' Plourd is typical of a growing number of people who diagnose themselves with a mental illness based on information on social media. Most of this content is found on TikTok, where youth and young adults are the most active users. It's a trend that deeply concerns professionals, who fear misdiagnoses — or worse. Sun-Ha Hong, an external faculty fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center with expertise in social media platform governance and AI, said social media platforms continuously feed the user content that is based on their interests. Their algorithms push content that keeps the user scrolling and keeps them on the platform longer. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Because that's really what makes it profitable for them,' Hong said. 'So that may not always be the healthiest content for you.' Social media platforms' algorithms also redirect harmful content, such as content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm or even suicide. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an international non-profit and non-governmental organization, TikTok recommends self-harm or suicide content within 2.6 minutes and eating disorder content within eight minutes to new teen users who express interest in mental health content. This recommended content, rather than helping users, can cause mental health issues, such as developing eating disorders, internalizing harmful body images or engaging in self-harm. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Content related to ADHD has gained traction on social media, particularly on TikTok. TikTok content creators such as Ontario's Olivia Lutfallah and Kansas's Connor DeWolfe have gained a large following from posting ADHD-related videos. Some of their videos have averaged more than 100,000 views. A few have had millions of views. Social media has become a tool to get information on all kinds of mental health conditions or neurodivergent tendencies, and the needs related to them. According to TikTok, which was launched in 2016, topics related to mental health, self-care and mental-health awareness have had more than 100 billion views as of October 2023. On Instagram, a search of the topic 'mental health' shows more than 57 million posts since 2010 while 'mental health support' has more than three million. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. According to the 2023 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey of youth in Grades 7 to 12, more than 8,000 adolescents out of 38,000 said they get their mental health information online. Online sources ranked third after consulting family or friends. In a 2024 study by the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research , 21 youth respondents in B.C. noted that TikTok is seen as an 'easy way to access mental health information' with the added benefit of being free, relatable and engaging. The study found that youth engagement with the topic of mental health surged on TikTok during the pandemic, as it softened the effects of social isolation and provided access to mental health information and support. However, the study warned that 'TikTok can adversely impact mental health through repetitive exposure to mentally distressing content and misleading diagnosis and treatment information. Regulations against harmful content are needed to mitigate these risks and make TikTok safer for youth.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Advice and clips on ADHD can be seen on several social media platforms. Getty Images Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images Self-diagnosis is often the default for people who face high costs for private assessments and long waits for doctors who can diagnose them. A small-sample survey by the non-profit organization AutismBC showed 34 per cent of its member respondents self-diagnosed or self-identified as autistic, according to Suzanne Perreault, executive director of the non-profit organization, which has a membership of more than 10,000. Social media content can help people to understand more about themselves and to recognize 'the 'why' behind 'why I do what I do,'' said Perreault, who self-diagnoses as being on the autism spectrum. According to the B.C. Autism Assessment Network, the waiting time for a child to get an assessment is 80.6 weeks. After the assessment, it can take four to six weeks to receive the results. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Perreault said adults have more limited options, and the wait for an assessment is around two years. If one wants to get an assessment faster, the only option is to get it privately, which can cost up to $4,000. A 2023 study by Statistics Canada found almost half of the people who meet the diagnostic criteria for mood, anxiety and substance-use disorders have not spoken to a health professional about their mental health during the past year. And even fewer talked to a specialist such as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. That's at least in part because public facilities dedicated to mental health are hard to find and to access, said Dr. Edward Taylor, a UBC Okanagan researcher and mental health clinician who has worked with children and adolescents. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Taylor believes people turn to social media out of convenience and the comfort of anonymity, partly because the support system in B.C. is overburdened, which has created the 'lack of availability of a professional support system.' Both funding and the availability of training for mental health professionals are missing, he said: 'They go hand in hand here in British Columbia.' According to a 2023 study by Family Medicine and Community Health, B.C. is one of the provinces with the greatest shortage of family physicians, with 17.7 per cent of the population reporting they have no family doctor. That means approximately 940,000 British Columbians have no family physician. The lack of an adequate professional support system shows in the long waiting times in B.C. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'If it's difficult to find, difficult to get into, if there's a waiting list, you tend to just … move away from it,' Taylor said. With so many barriers to getting professional help, it's not surprising that so many people turn to self-diagnosis. But the trend of self-diagnosis is troubling, said Taylor. He warns there is a possibility of misdiagnosis, in some cases due to an overlap of symptoms. For example, depression and anxiety can cause someone to have symptoms resembling obsessive-compulsive disorder. These symptoms can also have the 'appearance of regular depression' but can be indicators of bipolar depression. Self-diagnosis can lead individuals to develop preconceived ideas of what they have and what medicine they need to get it treated, so that the doctor-patient relationship and trust is weakened, said Taylor. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'They go to a physician, but they come in with a predetermined idea that a certain medication is what they need before they have a professional diagnosis,' he said. For someone who doesn't know the distinction between different conditions, as a doctor would, the wrong treatment can lead to dangerous consequences. Medications that can treat a particular type of illness can hurt a misdiagnosed individual. A self-diagnosed patient may be well-informed and, in some instances, even be able to persuade a time-pressed physician to agree to treatments that prove to be inappropriate, Taylor said. An example is SSRIs or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a common class of medication given to people with depression. There can be chemical differences between different kinds of SSRIs. For people who have bipolar depression, which can exhibit symptoms of 'regular depression,' the wrong medication may throw them into a manic attack. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It's been more than a year since several states in the United States filed lawsuits against TikTok and Meta, alleging the platforms are intentionally or negligently designing products that harm youths' mental health. In Canada, four Ontario school boards launched a lawsuit against TikTok, Meta, and Snap, charging that the platforms were 'negligently designed for compulsive use' that disrupts student learning. In the court case, one of the allegations of the Toronto school board is that these social media giants employ 'exploitative business practices and have negligently designed unsafe and/or addictive products' that they promote to students. There are now 14 school boards in Canada suing the social media giants, according to the Schools for Social Media Change website. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Some platforms have said that they are making changes to their systems to safeguard users from harmful content. Meta has said it introduced automatic restrictions so searches related to harmful content are not shown, and that the user is redirected to experts for help. However, how platforms deem content to be harmful is mostly unknown to governments and independent researchers because social media platforms do not explain their algorithms. According to Stanford's Hong, most of what researchers know is based on results gathered from reverse engineering algorithms. 'We have to trust these companies when they are telling us, 'This is how it works,'' he said. In an in-app survey conducted by TikTok in September 2023, 63 per cent of 1,898 respondents in Canada said they find a sense of belonging on the platform. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The recent Journal of Medical Internet Research study, while cautioning about misdiagnosis and the adverse effects of self-diagnosis on mental health, conceded that 'findings suggest that TikTok can be a useful tool to increase mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and encourage youth to learn and address their mental health challenges while providing a source of peer connection and support.' 'It creates empowerment,' said Perreault. 'Create inclusive spaces, create spaces for listening and acceptance.' Perreault sees videos on social media as a 'gentle introduction' on the road from self-identification or self-diagnosis to a final diagnosis by a medical professional. As for Plourd, he applied to the government for disability benefits. He said approval would allow him to focus on improving his mental health or working toward his aspirations. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Once the stress of 'can I pay rent this month or eat' [goes] away, that relieves a lot of anxiety,' he said. 'That means I can focus on getting healthy.' While he believes there is a different degree of validation that comes with getting an official diagnosis from a medical professional, he said it's important not to play down the validity of self-diagnosis. 'Because I know me better than most people do,' Plourd said. 'I live in here.' Thea Catipon is a 2024 recipient of the Langara College Read-Mercer Journalism Fellowship. This feature was produced through the Fellowship. Read More For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to – a member of the Postmedia Network. Local News University News News Real Estate
Vancouver Sun
2 days ago
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Millions of posts, billions of views: The dangers of using TikTok to self-diagnose mental-health issues
During a visit to a friend's place, Zack Plourd found his friend's medication for Adderall, one of the most common medications for ADHD or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. While Plourd had never sought a prescription for his self-diagnosed ADHD , he decided to try the Adderall. To his surprise, it helped with symptoms he'd struggled with, such as lack of focus, rambling when talking, and the constant need to keep his brain stimulated. So he asked his doctor for a prescription. As a result, he said, 'I can think. I can exist. I can do things now.' Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Plourd has self-diagnosed for years, based on content he's seen online and his real-life conversations. One of the first signs he identified with was people with ADHD talking about taking stimulants, such as caffeine, to focus. TikTok has thousands of videos that describe the habits of people with ADHD. Advice and clips on how to manage these habits and overcome the hardships of living with ADHD can be seen on several social media platforms. Whenever Plourd sees these videos, he relates: 'I have those things. I do those things.' Plourd is typical of a growing number of people who diagnose themselves with a mental illness based on information on social media. Most of this content is found on TikTok, where youth and young adults are the most active users. It's a trend that deeply concerns professionals, who fear misdiagnoses — or worse. Sun-Ha Hong, an external faculty fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center with expertise in social media platform governance and AI, said social media platforms continuously feed the user content that is based on their interests. Their algorithms push content that keeps the user scrolling and keeps them on the platform longer. 'Because that's really what makes it profitable for them,' Hong said. 'So that may not always be the healthiest content for you.' Social media platforms' algorithms also redirect harmful content, such as content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm or even suicide. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an international non-profit and non-governmental organization, TikTok recommends self-harm or suicide content within 2.6 minutes and eating disorder content within eight minutes to new teen users who express interest in mental health content. This recommended content, rather than helping users, can cause mental health issues, such as developing eating disorders, internalizing harmful body images or engaging in self-harm. Content related to ADHD has gained traction on social media, particularly on TikTok. TikTok content creators such as Ontario's Olivia Lutfallah and Kansas's Connor DeWolfe have gained a large following from posting ADHD-related videos. Some of their videos have averaged more than 100,000 views. A few have had millions of views. Social media has become a tool to get information on all kinds of mental health conditions or neurodivergent tendencies, and the needs related to them. According to TikTok , which was launched in 2016, topics related to mental health, self-care and mental-health awareness have had more than 100 billion views as of October 2023. On Instagram, a search of the topic 'mental health' shows more than 57 million posts since 2010 while 'mental health support' has more than three million. According to the 2023 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey of youth in Grades 7 to 12, more than 8,000 adolescents out of 38,000 said they get their mental health information online. Online sources ranked third after consulting family or friends. In a 2024 study by the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research , 21 youth respondents in B.C. noted that TikTok is seen as an 'easy way to access mental health information' with the added benefit of being free, relatable and engaging. The study found that youth engagement with the topic of mental health surged on TikTok during the pandemic, as it softened the effects of social isolation and provided access to mental health information and support. However, the study warned that 'TikTok can adversely impact mental health through repetitive exposure to mentally distressing content and misleading diagnosis and treatment information. Regulations against harmful content are needed to mitigate these risks and make TikTok safer for youth.' Self-diagnosis is often the default for people who face high costs for private assessments and long waits for doctors who can diagnose them. A small-sample survey by the non-profit organization AutismBC showed 34 per cent of its member respondents self-diagnosed or self-identified as autistic, according to Suzanne Perreault, executive director of the non-profit organization, which has a membership of more than 10,000. Social media content can help people to understand more about themselves and to recognize 'the 'why' behind 'why I do what I do,'' said Perreault, who self-diagnoses as being on the autism spectrum. According to the B.C. Autism Assessment Network, the waiting time for a child to get an assessment is 80.6 weeks . After the assessment, it can take four to six weeks to receive the results. Perreault said adults have more limited options, and the wait for an assessment is around two years. If one wants to get an assessment faster, the only option is to get it privately, which can cost up to $4,000. A 2023 study by Statistics Canada found almost half of the people who meet the diagnostic criteria for mood, anxiety and substance-use disorders have not spoken to a health professional about their mental health during the past year. And even fewer talked to a specialist such as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. That's at least in part because public facilities dedicated to mental health are hard to find and to access, said Dr. Edward Taylor, a UBC Okanagan researcher and mental health clinician who has worked with children and adolescents. Taylor believes people turn to social media out of convenience and the comfort of anonymity, partly because the support system in B.C. is overburdened, which has created the 'lack of availability of a professional support system.' Both funding and the availability of training for mental health professionals are missing, he said: 'They go hand in hand here in British Columbia.' According to a 2023 study by Family Medicine and Community Health, B.C. is one of the provinces with the greatest shortage of family physicians, with 17.7 per cent of the population reporting they have no family doctor. That means approximately 940,000 British Columbians have no family physician. The lack of an adequate professional support system shows in the long waiting times in B.C. 'If it's difficult to find, difficult to get into, if there's a waiting list, you tend to just … move away from it,' Taylor said. With so many barriers to getting professional help, it's not surprising that so many people turn to self-diagnosis. But the trend of self-diagnosis is troubling, said Taylor. He warns there is a possibility of misdiagnosis, in some cases due to an overlap of symptoms. For example, depression and anxiety can cause someone to have symptoms resembling obsessive-compulsive disorder. These symptoms can also have the 'appearance of regular depression' but can be indicators of bipolar depression. Self-diagnosis can lead individuals to develop preconceived ideas of what they have and what medicine they need to get it treated, so that the doctor-patient relationship and trust is weakened, said Taylor. 'They go to a physician, but they come in with a predetermined idea that a certain medication is what they need before they have a professional diagnosis,' he said. For someone who doesn't know the distinction between different conditions, as a doctor would, the wrong treatment can lead to dangerous consequences. Medications that can treat a particular type of illness can hurt a misdiagnosed individual. A self-diagnosed patient may be well-informed and, in some instances, even be able to persuade a time-pressed physician to agree to treatments that prove to be inappropriate, Taylor said. An example is SSRIs or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a common class of medication given to people with depression. There can be chemical differences between different kinds of SSRIs. For people who have bipolar depression, which can exhibit symptoms of 'regular depression,' the wrong medication may throw them into a manic attack. It's been more than a year since several states in the United States filed lawsuits against TikTok and Meta, alleging the platforms are intentionally or negligently designing products that harm youths' mental health. In Canada, four Ontario school boards launched a lawsuit against TikTok, Meta, and Snap, charging that the platforms were 'negligently designed for compulsive use' that disrupts student learning. In the court case, one of the allegations of the Toronto school board is that these social media giants employ 'exploitative business practices and have negligently designed unsafe and/or addictive products' that they promote to students. There are now 14 school boards in Canada suing the social media giants, according to the Schools for Social Media Change website. Some platforms have said that they are making changes to their systems to safeguard users from harmful content. Meta has said it introduced automatic restrictions so searches related to harmful content are not shown, and that the user is redirected to experts for help. However, how platforms deem content to be harmful is mostly unknown to governments and independent researchers because social media platforms do not explain their algorithms. According to Stanford's Hong, most of what researchers know is based on results gathered from reverse engineering algorithms. 'We have to trust these companies when they are telling us, 'This is how it works,'' he said. In an in-app survey conducted by TikTok in September 2023, 63 per cent of 1,898 respondents in Canada said they find a sense of belonging on the platform. The recent Journal of Medical Internet Research study, while cautioning about misdiagnosis and the adverse effects of self-diagnosis on mental health, conceded that 'findings suggest that TikTok can be a useful tool to increase mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and encourage youth to learn and address their mental health challenges while providing a source of peer connection and support.' 'It creates empowerment,' said Perreault. 'Create inclusive spaces, create spaces for listening and acceptance.' Perreault sees videos on social media as a 'gentle introduction' on the road from self-identification or self-diagnosis to a final diagnosis by a medical professional. As for Plourd, he applied to the government for disability benefits. He said approval would allow him to focus on improving his mental health or working toward his aspirations. 'Once the stress of 'can I pay rent this month or eat' [goes] away, that relieves a lot of anxiety,' he said. 'That means I can focus on getting healthy.' While he believes there is a different degree of validation that comes with getting an official diagnosis from a medical professional, he said it's important not to play down the validity of self-diagnosis. 'Because I know me better than most people do,' Plourd said. 'I live in here.' Thea Catipon is a 2024 recipient of the Langara College Read-Mercer Journalism Fellowship. This feature was produced through the Fellowship. For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to – a member of the Postmedia Network.
