There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives - and making them seriously unhappy.
Despite the nearly ubiquitous presence of social media in their lives...
Pew notes that there is no clear consensus among teens about these platforms' ultimate impact on people their age. A plurality of teens (45%) believe social media has a neither positive nor negative effect on people their age. Meanwhile, roughly three-in-ten teens (31%) say social media has had a mostly positive impact, while 24% describe its effect as mostly negative.
There is slightly less consensus among teens who say social media has had a mostly negative effect on people their age. The top response (mentioned by 27% of these teens) is that social media has led to more bullying and the overall spread of rumors.
"Gives people a bigger audience to speak and teach hate and belittle each other." (Boy, age 13)
"People can say whatever they want with anonymity and I think that has a negative impact." (Boy, age 15)
"Because teens are killing people all because of the things they see on social media or because of the things that happened on social media." (Girl, age 14)
Comment: NIH study: Children who spend 7 hrs a day staring at screens are changing the structure of their brains