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Mechanisms linking social media use to adolescent mental health vulnerability

Nature Reviews Psychology (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Research linking social media use and adolescent mental health has produced mixed and inconsistent findings and little translational evidence, despite pressure to deliver concrete recommendations for families, schools and policymakers. At the same time, it is widely recognized that developmental changes in behaviour, cognition and neurobiology predispose adolescents to developing socio-emotional disorders. In this Review, we argue that such developmental changes would be a fruitful focus for social media research. Specifically, we review mechanisms by which social media could amplify the developmental changes that increase adolescents’ mental health vulnerability. These mechanisms include changes to behaviour, such as sharing risky content and self-presentation, and changes to cognition, such as modifications in self-concept, social comparison, responsiveness to social feedback and experiences of social exclusion. We also consider neurobiological mechanisms that heighten stress sensitivity and modify reward processing. By focusing on mechanisms by which social media might interact with developmental changes to increase mental health risks, our Review equips researchers with a toolkit of key digital affordances that enables theorizing and studying technology effects despite an ever-changing social media landscape.

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Fig. 1: Age of onset for different mental disorders.
Fig. 2: Factors contributing to adolescent mental health vulnerability.
Fig. 3: Examples of social media affordances in adolescence.

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Acknowledgements

A.O. and T.D. were funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00030/13). A.O. was funded by the Jacobs Foundation and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/X034925/1). S.-J.B. is funded by Wellcome (grant numbers WT107496/Z/15/Z and WT227882/Z/23/Z), the MRC, the Jacobs Foundation, the Wellspring Foundation and the University of Cambridge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Amy Orben & Tim Dalgleish

  2. School of Business, Economics and Society, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Germany

    Adrian Meier

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

  4. Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK

    Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

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A.O. conceptualized the manuscript; A.O and A.M wrote the original draft; A.O., A.M., T.D. and S.-J.B. reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors contributed substantially to discussion of the content, and reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.

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Orben, A., Meier, A., Dalgleish, T. et al. Mechanisms linking social media use to adolescent mental health vulnerability. Nat Rev Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00307-y

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