Media Briefing: Social Media & Mental Health

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Feb. 26, 2026

Welcome, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Ellen Wilson, and I'll be the moderator for this media briefing, which is hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Today's speakers will discuss the evolving role that increased smartphone use and digital media play in well-being Including emerging mental and behavioral health impacts, and the growing conversation around a healthy digital balance.

I'd like to briefly introduce our speakers. Tamar Mendelson is a Bloomberg Professor of American Health and Director of the Center for Adolescent Health, with joint appointments in the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

She is also core faculty at the Bloomberg American Health Initiative.

Johannes Thrul is an associate professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Let's go ahead and start.

Professor Mendelson, how much are young people using social media? Can you explain the positive and negative uses of social media as well?

Tamar Mendelson

01:42

Thank you.

Youth social media use is at an all-time high. While social media isn't all bad, it does come with risks, particularly during this sensitive stage of development.

Almost all teens are using social media, and nearly half say they use it almost constantly. Teen social media use has been on the rise for over a decade, with an increase of 17% in overall screen use between 2019 and 2021 during the COVID pandemic.

Not only do 95% of teens use social media, but almost 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use it, even though the required minimum age for most social media platforms is 13.

There are positive uses of social media. For example, youth can connect with others who share an identity or interest, which can reduce loneliness and increase a sense of belonging. Teens can also express creativity online, and they can access information from reputable sources, including about mental health resources.

But there's also a significant risk of harm, including exposure to racist and sexist content, unrealistic beauty standards, disinformation, and cyberbullying. Benefits and harms of social media vary depending on the platform that's used, how it's used, and characteristics of the user.

Young people are at particular risk, however, because teen brains, identities, and coping skills are still developing.

Ellen Wilson

03:15

Thank you, Professor Mendelson. Now, a question for Professor Thrul. Given all the debate, what can we say with confidence about social media and mental health today?

Johannes Thrul

03:25

The science on social media and health is like early nutrition science. We know that access and certain ingredients are harmful, but the effects differ across people and contexts.

Social media is now a near-universal exposure among young people, and the key public health questions are how exactly it affects health, for whom, and under what conditions.

And we're working on public health approaches to improve digital well-being and digital balance.

I want to highlight three findings with developing evidence. First.

Heavy and problematic social media use is associated with sleep disruption, attention problems, and has addictive qualities.

A recent Delphi collective review among more than 120 researchers that both Dr. Mendelssohn and I contributed to found strong agreement that heavy social media use can cause sleep problems and attention fragmentation.

With links to mental health decline.

Second, effects are heterogeneous and not the same for all individuals who use social media.

Intensive longitudinal studies that track social media use and health daily over extended periods show that the impact of social media ranges from strongly negative to strongly positive, depending on the person, the context, and the platform.

For example, a recent 100-day diary study of adolescents found most participants experienced negative mental health effects overall.

But some had mixed or even positive effects, and impacts differed by platform.

Third.

Experimental evidence from social media reduction or abstinence trials gives us more confidence that social media is Thruly causing negative impacts on mental health.

My group worked on an analysis of 20 trials that encouraged mostly young adults to reduce or quit social media use for multiple weeks at a time. And our results showed measurable mental health improvements when people reduced social media use for at least a week or more.

So at this point, my conclusion is social media is not toxic for mental health for all users, in all cases.

But the platforms are generally designed to keep people scrolling and clicking for as long as possible. They are not designed for people's well-being.

And we're starting to see more evidence that social media harms mental health.

Public health approaches, like those we use for alcohol, tobacco, or ultra-processed foods, can help people achieve what we call digital balance, which means minimizing harm while preserving benefits of technology use at the intersection of mental, physical, and social well-being.

Ellen Wilson

06:18

Great, thank you, Professor Thrul. Now we will take additional questions. A reminder, if you have a question, please enter it in the Zoom chat with your name, media outlet question, and to whom you'd like to address your question. Let's start with Professor Mendelson. What can parents do to reduce problematic digital media use among young people?

Tamar Mendelson

06:38

So my top two tips for parents are to help your child, number one, fill their time with in-person activities, and two, to use social media in positive ways.

So, number one, in-person should come first. Focus on keeping young people engaged in the real-world activities that promote thriving. That means phone-free meals with family whenever possible.

Healthy bedtimes, and after-school activities that tap into your child's passions, whether that's sports, debate society, or chess club.

The more in-person activities young people have with peers and parents, the less time they have for social media.

Encouraging or requiring in-person activities can be more effective than simply banning social media because it offers concrete and hopefully enjoyable alternatives.

Number two, quality over quantity. The American Academy of Pediatrics concluded we don't have enough evidence to recommend a specific cutoff for how many hours on social media is harmful for young people.

That's because young people use digital media in different ways, and they have different responses to it based on their own strengths and needs. So regulating use based on quantity is not necessarily the most effective strategy. Focus instead on quality, how a young person is using social media.

For example, positive social media uses include online spaces that affirm a young person's identity and expand their social circle.

This can be especially useful for young people with marginalized identities, including LGBTQ plus youth and youth with disabilities.

In addition, digital art tools and collaborative platforms can encourage youth to develop their creative interests online. Online resources can also help young people find support, including for mental health.

And of course, parents can also use privacy settings, and parental controls to help limit use.

Ellen Wilson

08:43

Great, thank you so much. Another question for you, Professor Mendelson, from Mandy Gaither Nottingham with CNN News Source. What are the warning signs that social media use is becoming a problem for youth and teens?

Tamar Mendelson

09:00

Problematic social media use typically involves increasing amounts of time spent on social media, interference with daily tasks like homework and bedtime, difficulty getting off social media, and preoccupation with social media, even when the young person isn't using it.

Those are red flags that parents and educators should pay attention to.

Ellen Wilson

09:22

Great, thank you. And Ken, you touched on this in your speaking points, but why are adolescents especially vulnerable?

Tamar Mendelson

09:30

So, teen brains are still developing until about age 25, and in particular, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for emotion regulation and planning, it's still developing.

So while teens, have heightened interest in social validation and reward-seeking, they don't really have the brakes.

To help them regulate that. They're also still developing their identities, their sense of who they are, and so this is really a sensitive period in development that can have, long-lasting implications for teens' transition into a healthy adulthood.

Ellen Wilson

10:07

And from Anna Mendereus with AARP Magazine for you, Professor Mendelson, how are you seeing social media overuse specifically affect Americans aged 50 plus?

Tamar Mendelson

10:19

We don't yet have that much research on the effects of social media use among older adults, but we do know that close to three-quarters of adults age 50 and older use social media regularly. Excessive use 4-6 hours a day has been linked with depression and anxiety in older adults.

Older adults also tend to be more vulnerable to online scams than younger people, but social media use also helps reduce loneliness for many older adults, and can keep them connected with family and friends and loved ones.

Ellen Wilson

10:56

Great, thank you. Here's a question from Ritu Chatterjee with NPR for Professor Thrul.

How can parents help teens use AI chatbots safely, and what kinds of warning signs should be on the lookout for that might suggest that their teen might be in a harmful relationship with a chat box, and what's an appropriate intervention?

Johannes Thrul

11:18

Yeah, so AI chatbots are increasingly used among adults and young people, and I think for parents, the main points are you need to be, just like with other technology use, involved in the online life of your teen, of your child, to see what they're doing, what kind of interactions they have.

And I think supervision is important, obviously, but so is being in a partnership kind of relationship with your team to know what they're doing and what kind of benefits and drawbacks they might see in those interactions.

I think, you know, obviously we know that the mental healthcare system has some gaps, and that people are seeking care from chatbots. Right now, I think in terms of the mental health evidence.

For chatbots, that evidence is mixed and is still developing. We know that some early studies show benefits of expert-developed generative AI chatbots for mental health treatment.

But I'm gonna say again, these are expert-developed chatbots. Those are not the off-the-shelf chatbots that are available. So, when we look at general-purpose AI chatbots, we see…

risks that are fairly similar to social media research, right? Like, user over-reliance on technology, like intense emotional attachments, and platforms that are optimized for engagement, so keeping people interacting with the technology rather than well-being, and the potential of reinforcement of distorted beliefs is a real risk among chatbots as well.

Ellen Wilson

12:57

And this is, delving further into this, a question from Mandy Gaither Nottingham from CNN for you, Professor Thrul. Parents may not understand AI and chat box. What impacts can they have on youth mental health?

Johannes Thrul

13:12

Yeah, so, the points I just made, I think, apply here as well, right? So, like, the impact can be if it's an expert-developed system,

it can be really helpful in terms of providing support for mental health treatment. And then again, on the downside, over-reliance, intense emotional attachments, the engagement loops that are part of the chatbots, and the potential reinforcement of,

Distorted beliefs, delusions.

And, so I… I think… For parents, it's important to

Not completely shy away from the technology, trying to understand what you can, try to understand

What the platforms are that are out there, and try to understand what kind of role they play in your child's, in your teen's life, so you can be an informed consumer yourself, but also an informed parent.

I will say that we recently had an excellent event on AI and mental health here at the Bloomberg School that discussed the potential for mental health benefits and harms of AI chatbots, and I would encourage those who are interested to check it out.

I think, at this point, the public health message should be that AI chatbots have tremendous potential to be helpful tools when designed responsibly, with expert input, and used with guardrails.

But we need more work and evidence on how they can best be integrated into mental health care.

Ellen Wilson

14:49

Great, thank you. Also for you, Professor Thrul, a question from Anya Sustek with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Can you talk about social media use disorder? What is it, and what are some of the criteria for assessment?

Johannes Thrul

15:04

Yeah, so social media use disorder is, at this point, not an official diagnosis that is part of the DSM or the ICD that psychiatrists would take to make an official diagnosis of a disorder, like, you know, we do for substance use disorders or gambling, for example.

However, we do have certain criteria that we look for, and there are screening instruments that assess this. Broadly, when we're talking about addiction, I think just as well as for substances and for behavioral addictions, which is what social media disorder is, we're looking for

Continued use despite negative consequences that are causing

significant impairment in somebody's life. So, continued use despite negative consequences with impairment. And those tend to be, kind of, emotional attachments, right? So, like, social media use takes up a lot of your brain space, a lot of the time.

People are trying to quit or reduce and are unsuccessful, so a kind of loss of control. Conflicts with other things in life, like loss of interest in hobbies.

Negative impacts on sleep is a good example that we see frequently. And then conflicts with other people in your life. So, broadly speaking, continued use despite negative consequences that causes impairment.

Ellen Wilson

16:28

And going deeper into this for you, Professor Troll, from Lauren Feiner with The Verge, how useful is the paradigm of addiction for understanding overuse of social media? How should parents wean teens off of social media if they are noticing the warning signs mentioned?

Johannes Thrul

16:45

Yeah, I mean, I think it is useful, right? It's not an official diagnosis yet, but I do think that we can track certain symptoms across, substances and as well as behaviors.

Now, how to address… and it helps us make a differentiation between when is something just enthusiastic use, so I bring up the concept of digital balance again.

If social media is part of your daily diet, of

media consumption, screen time, but you also still have interests in and activities that are physical. You have in face-to-face social contacts, right? Social media use doesn't necessarily

rise to the level of it being really problematic. So we're talking about digital balance. Now, when it takes over those other things, loss of interest in hobbies, things like that, then we would

make kind of the cutoff, right, where something that is otherwise considered relatively benign, and maybe even positive, turns into something that's negative. Now, I think for parents, first of all, they need to have an eye on what is happening.

And then I would say, work in steps and stages to try to find out what the kind of interventions and small steps are that, you can help your child can self-regulate, the technology use.

And that can be, obviously, both, in terms of, like, being in conversation, giving advice, but then also, screen time apps, right? Like, things that are already built into a device.

I would say a high-value target, in my mind, is protecting sleep.

So we know that particularly late evening and night use of screens, and social media is one of those culprits, that…

that contributes to increased screen time, then really harms the time that kids… teens spend sleeping, and that is a big culprit in negative mental health impact. So if kids are sleep-deprived, we know they need a lot of sleep.

Smartphones and screens and social media can really cut into that, so protecting sleep, like, for example, not having phones in the bedroom, cutting the internet at night, things like that, can be really helpful there.

Tamar Mendelson

19:11

And I would add, as well that if parents are noticing some of these excessive signs of possible addiction and are struggling to help their child manage that.

That seeking mental health services and treatment can be very valuable, and there are approaches, including cognitive behavioral approaches, that have been found to be effective for helping with these problems.

Ellen Wilson

19:37

Great, thank you. For you, Professor Mendelson, a question from Meg Windurter with the Denver Post. Is it possible to train the algorithm to support your mental health?

My Instagram feed mostly consists of comics, movie trailers, and ads for craft supplies, so I'm curious if people can deliberately make their experience benign.

Tamar Mendelson

19:59

So, there are ways to influence the content in your feed to some extent, since algorithms learn from your online behavior. So you can filter out unwanted posts, manage privacy and content settings, and search for topics that you want to engage with.

That will influence content to some extent, but I think the more important point is that social media algorithms are developed by tech experts whose goal is really to maximize user engagement and time spent online, not to promote positive mental health.

So I would not assume that average people can fully train or control these algorithms.

Ellen Wilson

20:35

Great, thank you. And here's a question for Professor Thrul. Smartphone bans in schools are now implemented in many school districts in America. What do we know about their effects?

Johannes Thrul

20:47

there is emerging evidence that smartphone bans in schools can improve academic outcomes and classroom focus. For example, there's a recent large-scale quasi-experimental study from Florida

That found that a statewide cell phone ban led to improvements in study test scores after an adjustment period, along with reductions in unexcused absences.

I think that tells us something that is worth paying attention to and that is important, which is changing the environment also changes behavior and can lead to beneficial outcomes for students.

However, I also want to note that school bans don't solve the whole problem, and most social media use happens at night or at home, where sleep disruptions and mental health effects then are the consequence.

So, my view as a public health researcher is that smartphone bans at school can be one useful tool.

But they work best alongside broader strategies that help students and families achieve digital balance, not just the device removal during school hours. And together with a group of researchers here at Johns Hopkins.

We're working on developing such a comprehensive intervention, both for here domestically in the US, but also in international settings.

Ellen Wilson

22:14

Great, thank you. And another policy question for you, Professor Thrul. Several countries like Australia are moving toward minimum age limits for social media. Do these policies make sense from a public health perspective?

Johannes Thrul

22:29

I would say that minimum age limits are important from a precautionary public health perspective, because younger adolescents may be more vulnerable to certain harms, like sleep disruption, social comparison, exposure to harassment.

But I think we also need to be honest about the evidence. It is very early, these laws have not been around for very long, and we don't yet have strong causal data showing that age limit laws themselves improve mental health at a population level.

And I, like many of my colleagues, will be closely following the data that are to come out of these countries that have already or are planning to implement these age limits.

I would say from a public health standpoint, age limits can be, again, one useful tool, especially if they delay early exposure.

But they should also be paired with better platform design.

Digital literacy education and support for parents and families.

So I think age limits are a reasonable starting point, as part of a broader strategy, but they're not a substitute for addressing the underlying issue, which is that many platforms are optimized for engagement, to keep people scrolling and clicking, rather than well-being.

Ellen Wilson

23:43

Great, thank you. And for you, Professor Mendelson, we've covered some of this, but getting, deeper into it, what does the science currently say about the mental health risks versus the potential benefits of digital media use?

Tamar Mendelson

23:59

Right, so research has shown that social media use is associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, and body image issues for some young people. And interestingly, close to half of teens who were surveyed said that social media makes them feel worse.

There are, however, significant benefits as well for some young people. The benefits include social connection, finding a supportive online community, having a creative outlet, and gaining access to information and resources. And these benefits may be…

especially helpful for young people with marginalized identities, LGBTQ plus youth.

For example, and those who don't really have a supportive peer community at their school.

So, it's important for parents to be aware of how is a child using social media, are they obtaining these kinds of positive benefits, or are they… does it seem to be impacting them in a more negative way?

Ellen Wilson

25:09

Great, thank you. And a final question from Dorothy Goforth with WTHI News in Indiana for Professor Thrul. What are the dangers of building interpersonal relationships with AI chatbots?

Johannes Thrul

25:23

Just like we discussed before, with chatbots, I think there is a real potential that they might improve mental health access, specifically if we have expert design systems.

That, have been vetted and really studied in depth, and we know how they respond to mental health crises, for example.

I think with any kind of… these close relationships with technology.

The things we worry about is when the technology starts replacing human connection, for example, because we know that we're all social animals, we derive a lot of benefits from human contact and in-person connection in particular.

And so, when technology starts encroaching on those relationships, I think that's when we would start seeing potentially negative consequences and downsides.

And again, the other aspect that I mentioned before is sleep, right? When we get into, overuse of technology, specifically late at night.

And that has an impact on sleep quality, the amount of sleep that somebody gets, then we would expect to see negative consequences for mental health.

So I think at this point, it's obviously very early with AI chatbots, and we're starting to see first signals that some people really develop problematic relationships with them, and it's important to keep an eye on that and start, you know, also developing potential approaches that can help people get out of

Maybe, negative, problematic attachments, with those new types of technology.

Ellen Wilson

27:09

Great, thank you both for answering all the questions. We will now take a few minutes to share brief closing remarks. Professor Mendelson, please go ahead.

Tamar Mendelson

27:19

So, parents should not panic. Parents can help support their teen's healthy development by prioritizing regular bedtimes, meal times, and in-person activities with friends and family. Parents should stay closely connected with their teen's social media use.

Communicate with them, and encourage positive uses of social media.

Developing and testing interventions that educate parents and young people about how to achieve healthy balance in social media use is a critical goal for the future.

Ellen Wilson

27:53

Thank you, Professor Mendelson. Professor Thrul, please go ahead.

Johannes Thrul

27:57

Yeah, I would re-emphasize that social media is not uniformly toxic for all users, but the current platforms are optimized for engagement, to keep people clicking and scrolling, not for their well-being and mental health.

And from a public health standpoint, I want to say that, like for tobacco, for ultra-processed foods, we need smart policy guardrails, and also better platform design to reduce harm and allow people to get the benefits that they can get from technology use.

Ellen Wilson

28:32

Great, thank you to you both for your insightful answers. 

Bloomberg American Health Initiative 

Mental Health in the Scroll Age 

Social media is fueling a public health crisis for children and teens. Experts say accountability is overdue.  

Kids Turning to Chatbot Therapy 

What's behind the ban on cell phones in K-12 schools? 

Social Media and Youth Mental Health 

Contact the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health media team.

Visit the Bloomberg School's newsroom.