ST0002

Written evidence submitted by Professor Christopher Ferguson

I am writing in reference to the current inquiry on the use of screens and social media on children and youth.  I would like to highlight several pieces of recent research I’ve been involved with.  My focus in this case will be in regard to the purported effects of social media and other screens on mental health.  In particular, I am concerned that evidence is poor to link screens and social media to mental health issues in children, and we may be seeing a repeat of past “moral panics” over technology that do little to help children’s welfare.  Below I expand and update on testimony I offered to the Science and Technology committee back in 2018.

Concerns about impacts of screens on mental health, particularly for youth, are nothing new, although they often take cyclical patterns of panic as new technologies are introduced, followed by relief and even ridicule as it becomes more evident that the panicking was unwarranted.  Social media has become the focus of recent moral panics.  This has been particularly true in the US which has seen recent increases in suicide (as per Centers of Disease Control statistics).  However, by focusing exclusively on youth suicide, many commentators have misdiagnosed the cause as social media, despite little evidence to support such concerns.  Such spurious claims are achieved typically by ignoring much higher suicide rates and increases in suicide among older generations (middle aged men, for instance, are about 3-5x more likely to commit suicide than teen girls according to CDC data).  Thus, we’ve reenacted a parable of blind men touching only part of an elephant and misunderstanding what they’ve found.  Given that suicides are often multigenerational, this failure to connect patterns in families and, instead, blame screens, is rather remarkable.  Furthermore, in the UK, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, no similar clear pattern of increasing teen suicides is witnessed as they note: “Over the past 15 years, the UK rate of suicide among 15-24 year olds has gradually fallen, but rose again in 2018 – although this be partly due to a change in coronial standards rather than a true rise.”

Colleagues and I from the UK, Ireland, and US just completed a large meta-analysis of studies of screen use and mental health (Ferguson, Kaye et al., 2022).  We concluded that the current pool of evidence could not support the contention that screens including social media or smartphones specifically contribute to higher mental health concerns.  This article proved to be the most downloaded article published in any American Psychological Association journal in 2022. Several of us have recently concluded a meta-analysis of studies of social media use, mental health, and youth.  Although not published yet (it’s currently undergoing peer review), this subsequent meta-analysis found little evidence to connect social media use to mental health problems in youth.

Likewise, in an analysis of teen use of screens using data from both the US and UK, no evidence was found that changes in screen use reflecting greater use of social media were associated with worsening mental health issues for youth (Ferguson, 2021).

At this juncture, it is time to recognize that the data simply aren’t supporting links between social media and other screens and youth mental health.  We’re likely to continue hearing dramatic anecdotes and even some scholars sounding alarm bells, just as we did for previous moral panics over video games, comic books, video nasties, and even the radio or dime novels.  Focusing on shielding youth from technology is unlikely to have positive impact, particularly to the degree it distracts policymakers from issues in the home, in schools or in neighborhoods that actually impact youth.

I would be happy to discuss my research with the committee or discuss my thoughts on other studies by other scholars as well.

References:

Ferguson, C.J.  (2021).  Links between screen use and depressive symptoms in adolescents over 16 years: Is there evidence for increased harm?  Developmental Science, 24(1) e13008.

Ferguson, C.J., Kaye, L., Branley-Bell, D., Markey, P., Ivory, J., Klisanin, D., et al.  (2022).  Like This Meta-analysis: Screen Media and Mental Health.  Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 53, 205-214.

September 2023