83% of teens who told the CDC survey they were frequently depressed, and 84% of those who reported being cyberbullied, also reported histories of being emotionally and/or violently abused by parents and household adults -- and many more had parents/caretakers who suffered addiction, severe depression, and jailing. I don't doubt that a small fraction of teens and adults who have problems elsewhere in their lives may find these problems exacerbated by unhealthy social media use, and abused and depressed teens do use social media more than non-abused teens, often to seek contacts and help. To simply ignore the dominant role of parent/adult-inflicted abuses in driving teens' mental health problems and pretend the whole problem is just teens' developmental stage and social media habits is bizarre and unproductive. Somehow, we have devolved into fixating on the mouse in the room and ignoring the elephant.
Hello- I am a mental health clinician/family therapist and I have been treating digital media overuse (DMO) and addictions for the past 15 years via our center Digital Media Treatment & Education Center. We developed a systemic based treatment approach about 10 years ago, and we train clinicians on utilizing it, and many associated areas to DMO. We have offered clinical trainings since about 2018 to those in the mental health field, etc, and we find people love learning the information, however we are finding mental health clinicians as a whole are slow to embrace this field as an important, necessary part of their work, even a speciality. Our cohort is still so small, yet growing. We have different thoughts about this challenge; such as, limited research as you point out, it is a complicated problem area to treat given how prevalent/pervasive devices are in schools, at work, in families; we are very accepting as a society of devices and apps, the US is slow to embrace the ICD-11 which now includes gaming disorder and compulsive sexual behavior disorder, therefore insurance will not cover these as disorders and legal accommodations do not yet apply for kids who just can't learn on devices due to their inability to control their online behaviors, and clearly there is yet to be a clear standard of practice for treatment. From our perspective each application typically seen as problematic/"addictive" (gaming, social media, porn, compulsive spending/gambling, and info overload) requires a specific focus and interventions- it is not about treating "internet addiction" anymore. It is a slow moving train and without more guidance, therapists as whole feel directionless. And I must note, important institutions doing very important research on screen related problem areas (ABCD study) such as, the national institute of health (NIH) are being required to have their funding diminished. It will limit our ability to truly do good work and publish necessary research findings.
I've been in the field since 2008, licensed since 2012, and have run my own agency since 2015. We specialize in familes and children, and work in rural, suburban, and urban settings, including schools, and average 10,000 appointments and ~1200 undupilcated patients annually.
Yes, this is a problem. And, follwing the timeline of circa 2012, it has not only gotten worse, but rippled up the demographic ladder to older generations as well.
I am flabbergasted that no one has qualitatively studied this yet because to those of us doing this day in and day out, it's completely obvious. That any doubt exists about the detriment to our psyches of hyper connectivity is truly mind bending.
Thank you for your insights, Dr. Thai. More psychological caregivers need to be routinely addressing this component of mental health in our teens and adults, and I appreciate your thoughtful approach.
I am 68 years old. When I was a teen many of my peers were harming themselves. Social media is what we do now, when we’re happy, and when we’re harming ourselves. Social media is not the problem. Society is the problem.
John -as an 82 year old year old I respectfully disagree with you. Social media is not the exclusive problem, but if not the cause it is certainly a huge contributing factor which greatly magnifies it . There are aspects of the addictive behavior caused by Facebook, TikTok and You Tube which are clearly legal but which no truly ethical person would sanction.
It's just a socially acceptable (approved?) form of isolation and self-injury. Doctors can quantify and document scratches, burns, and scabs; not so the case with emotional damage.
If anything, an honest appraisal of these observations actually militates against mandatory, broad-stroke, one-size-fits-all restrictions based on age (or gender, for that matter). Rather, focused protection and intervention of the relatively small percentage of individuals who actually have such problems makes far more sense. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater now.
I am a parent of 2 and a primary care provider for 14 years. I have seen the effects of social media worsening my children’s peer groups, as well as my patients. Primary care also needs to be better equipped to ask the right questions and assist in treating the mental health effects of these patients as sometimes there is a barrier to getting patients to psychologists and psychiatrists. We all need to be in this together. Great read! I love that I can come here to feel like my thoughts towards social media and society are validated!
Thank you so much for this...I'm a LMFT in private practice and the Mental Wellness Expert at the Four Seasons Center for Health and Wellbeing in Westlake Village CA, as well as the MAMA Chapter Leader (Mothers Against Media Addiction) for the Conejo Valley. I am speaking at the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapist's Annual Conference this spring on this topic. I'll be making recommendations for how therapists can make research based recommendations for healthier technology use to their clients, regardless of age. I find that this topic comes up in every session, regardless of age, occupation, gender. It's time mental health professionals make these strategies you spelled out a regular part of our work. Bravo!
Yes! I’m thrilled to see this is getting the attention it deserves.
Young people not only resist abstaining from social media — they feel they have no choice if they want to participate in their generation’s cultural conversation.
As a millennial, I often find myself teetering on the edge of social media FOMO! I rely on these platforms to stay connected with my network for events, updates, and news. It’s how I get work as an artist, promote events, and lift up other community organizers. I understand that today’s teens, raised in an entirely digital world, feel an even stronger pull toward constant app use.
Research shows most teens (and adults) recognize the harms in social media use, yet continue using these platforms out of necessity.
As a result, the repeated message that one should avoid social media has taken on a shaming quality that ends up doing the opposite of what we intended.
Light is the linchpin. All we need to do is literally march ourselves, and our children, out the door first thing in the morning - out of the darkness of artificial blue light, and into the calm-inducing sunrise.
83% of teens who told the CDC survey they were frequently depressed, and 84% of those who reported being cyberbullied, also reported histories of being emotionally and/or violently abused by parents and household adults -- and many more had parents/caretakers who suffered addiction, severe depression, and jailing. I don't doubt that a small fraction of teens and adults who have problems elsewhere in their lives may find these problems exacerbated by unhealthy social media use, and abused and depressed teens do use social media more than non-abused teens, often to seek contacts and help. To simply ignore the dominant role of parent/adult-inflicted abuses in driving teens' mental health problems and pretend the whole problem is just teens' developmental stage and social media habits is bizarre and unproductive. Somehow, we have devolved into fixating on the mouse in the room and ignoring the elephant.
Well said.
Hello- I am a mental health clinician/family therapist and I have been treating digital media overuse (DMO) and addictions for the past 15 years via our center Digital Media Treatment & Education Center. We developed a systemic based treatment approach about 10 years ago, and we train clinicians on utilizing it, and many associated areas to DMO. We have offered clinical trainings since about 2018 to those in the mental health field, etc, and we find people love learning the information, however we are finding mental health clinicians as a whole are slow to embrace this field as an important, necessary part of their work, even a speciality. Our cohort is still so small, yet growing. We have different thoughts about this challenge; such as, limited research as you point out, it is a complicated problem area to treat given how prevalent/pervasive devices are in schools, at work, in families; we are very accepting as a society of devices and apps, the US is slow to embrace the ICD-11 which now includes gaming disorder and compulsive sexual behavior disorder, therefore insurance will not cover these as disorders and legal accommodations do not yet apply for kids who just can't learn on devices due to their inability to control their online behaviors, and clearly there is yet to be a clear standard of practice for treatment. From our perspective each application typically seen as problematic/"addictive" (gaming, social media, porn, compulsive spending/gambling, and info overload) requires a specific focus and interventions- it is not about treating "internet addiction" anymore. It is a slow moving train and without more guidance, therapists as whole feel directionless. And I must note, important institutions doing very important research on screen related problem areas (ABCD study) such as, the national institute of health (NIH) are being required to have their funding diminished. It will limit our ability to truly do good work and publish necessary research findings.
I've been in the field since 2008, licensed since 2012, and have run my own agency since 2015. We specialize in familes and children, and work in rural, suburban, and urban settings, including schools, and average 10,000 appointments and ~1200 undupilcated patients annually.
Yes, this is a problem. And, follwing the timeline of circa 2012, it has not only gotten worse, but rippled up the demographic ladder to older generations as well.
I am flabbergasted that no one has qualitatively studied this yet because to those of us doing this day in and day out, it's completely obvious. That any doubt exists about the detriment to our psyches of hyper connectivity is truly mind bending.
Thank you for your insights, Dr. Thai. More psychological caregivers need to be routinely addressing this component of mental health in our teens and adults, and I appreciate your thoughtful approach.
I am 68 years old. When I was a teen many of my peers were harming themselves. Social media is what we do now, when we’re happy, and when we’re harming ourselves. Social media is not the problem. Society is the problem.
John -as an 82 year old year old I respectfully disagree with you. Social media is not the exclusive problem, but if not the cause it is certainly a huge contributing factor which greatly magnifies it . There are aspects of the addictive behavior caused by Facebook, TikTok and You Tube which are clearly legal but which no truly ethical person would sanction.
It's just a socially acceptable (approved?) form of isolation and self-injury. Doctors can quantify and document scratches, burns, and scabs; not so the case with emotional damage.
If anything, an honest appraisal of these observations actually militates against mandatory, broad-stroke, one-size-fits-all restrictions based on age (or gender, for that matter). Rather, focused protection and intervention of the relatively small percentage of individuals who actually have such problems makes far more sense. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater now.
I am a parent of 2 and a primary care provider for 14 years. I have seen the effects of social media worsening my children’s peer groups, as well as my patients. Primary care also needs to be better equipped to ask the right questions and assist in treating the mental health effects of these patients as sometimes there is a barrier to getting patients to psychologists and psychiatrists. We all need to be in this together. Great read! I love that I can come here to feel like my thoughts towards social media and society are validated!
Thank you so much for this...I'm a LMFT in private practice and the Mental Wellness Expert at the Four Seasons Center for Health and Wellbeing in Westlake Village CA, as well as the MAMA Chapter Leader (Mothers Against Media Addiction) for the Conejo Valley. I am speaking at the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapist's Annual Conference this spring on this topic. I'll be making recommendations for how therapists can make research based recommendations for healthier technology use to their clients, regardless of age. I find that this topic comes up in every session, regardless of age, occupation, gender. It's time mental health professionals make these strategies you spelled out a regular part of our work. Bravo!
Yes! I’m thrilled to see this is getting the attention it deserves.
Young people not only resist abstaining from social media — they feel they have no choice if they want to participate in their generation’s cultural conversation.
As a millennial, I often find myself teetering on the edge of social media FOMO! I rely on these platforms to stay connected with my network for events, updates, and news. It’s how I get work as an artist, promote events, and lift up other community organizers. I understand that today’s teens, raised in an entirely digital world, feel an even stronger pull toward constant app use.
Research shows most teens (and adults) recognize the harms in social media use, yet continue using these platforms out of necessity.
As a result, the repeated message that one should avoid social media has taken on a shaming quality that ends up doing the opposite of what we intended.
Great read
Light is the linchpin. All we need to do is literally march ourselves, and our children, out the door first thing in the morning - out of the darkness of artificial blue light, and into the calm-inducing sunrise.
I found this presentation very informative going beyond the frequently stated "problems"! Nice work!