Social Media and Mental Health in Teens
Source 1:
Mayo Clinic Staff. “How to Help Your Teen Navigate Social Media.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 Jan. 2024,
www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/tween-and-teen-health/in-depth/teens-and-social-
media-use/art-20474437.
This article explores the positive and negative impacts of social media on tweens and
teens’ mental health. The article has shown that using social media has brought several benefits
to teens, such as that they can express themselves fully and connect with other people living
farther from them online. However, there are also negative aspects on both well-being and
identity that social media brings to teens that the article has brought up, such as lack of
concentration, disrupts the sleeping schedule, body dysmorphia, and cyberbullying. These
consequences have been linked to many self-harm cases found in teens, and even more severe –
death. This is related to algorithmic effects, or also known as the decision-making process in
people. This source is useful because it shows both the positive and negative aspects that social
media can bring to teens, and how those negative aspects can have systemic and algorithmic
effects on teens. This source is reliable because this article is peer-reviewed by qualified Mayo
Clinic’s Staff – doctors and professors, and Mayo Clinic itself is a well-known medical
institution in the United States.
Source 2:
Kelly, Yvonne, et al. “Social Media Use and Adolescent Mental Health: Findings from
the UK Millennium Cohort Study.” EClinicalMedicine, U.S. National Library of
Medicine, 4 Jan. 2019, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6537508/.
This article is an experiment investigating the effects of social media use on female and
male teenagers. In this experiment, 10,914 teenagers at the age of 14 are being studied on the
relationship between depressive symptoms and social media usage. The results have shown that
longer exposure to social media has a link with harassment, low sleeping quality, and body
dysmorphia/not satisfied with one’s body and/or weight, which is related to higher depressive
symptoms. This experiment is useful because it proved the link between teenagers’ degrading
mental well-being and time spent on social media, such as lower self-esteem and depression.
This experiment is reliable because it is done by qualified scientists and doctors, it is reviewed
thoroughly by many contributing scientists, and it is funded by the government.
Source 3:
The Learning Network. “What Teens Are Saying about barring Children under 16 from
Social Media - The New York Times.” What Teens Are Saying About Barring Children
Under 16 From Social Media, 2025, www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/learning/what-teens-
are-saying-about-barring-children-under-16-from-social-media.html.
This digital article explored what teenagers will think if their home country starts to ban
people who are under 16 years old from creating social media accounts. This article was inspired
by the newest executed law from Australia at the end of 2024, where teenagers under 16 are
banned from using social media accounts. Several teenagers have reflected how their identity and
well-being will be affected if their country might execute the same law that Australia did. Some
have heard that many teenagers choose to scroll on social media for a very long time instead of
being physically active or improving their own mental health, which is bad for one’s well-being.
Others also believed that using too much social media can make teens miss out on other things in
the ‘outside world’. However, some other students believed that this law isn't beneficial at all.
Some believe that if social media is banned, then more teenagers will become more sneaky and
find extreme methods to be able to create a social media account, such as using VPN. Others
might be more depressed because they can’t express themselves fully, such as those who are in
LGBTQ+. This is useful because it shows the opinions of teenagers about banning social media
for those who are under 16 – what they think will happen to their mental health if this law is
executed. This is a credible source because it is a peer-reviewed article and The New York
Times is a large, well-known newspaper company.
