There is mounting evidence that social networks are harmful. There are, of course, heartbreaking anecdotes about teenagers taking their own lives. There is an obvious correlation between the timing of when these networks were established and self-reported mental health. Jonathan Haidt’s acclaimed book The Anxious Generation makes a persuasive case in this regard.
And there’s emerging but compelling causal evidence that poor mental health among young people is because of social networks. For instance, a 2022 paper published in the flagship American Economic Review offers evidence from a field experiment that addiction accounts for 31 per cent of social media use. And the authors find that use drops significantly when users can set limits on screen time.
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