Investigating Positive & Negative Effects of Social Media on Youth Mental Health

Several Yale researchers are launching pilot studies to investigate the impacts of social media on child and adolescent mental health and development—from developing digital phenotypes related to social media use across the lifespan to studying connections between social media use with social anxiety, attention, emotional regulation, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Four new projects have been funded through a new social media pilot research award, made possible through a generous donation to Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) this past year.

The funding opportunity opened to applications from full-time faculty with primary appointments at Yale School of Medicine in the Child Study Center, Department of Psychiatry, or Department of Pediatrics, in early 2025. The award aims to advance the understanding of both positive and negative effects of social media on youth well-being and contribute to evidence-based recommendations for healthy social media use among children and adolescents. Awardees were announced via the department's internal announcements in June, and the following projects are now underway.

In the study abstract for this project, Christine Cha, PhD, and Shirley Wang, PhD, note that, “Social and digital media engagement is ubiquitous, given its use by nearly every teenager and adult in the United States.” They add that social and digital media have the potential to help or harm people's lives—and their research aims to address gaps in knowledge related to the benefits versus detriments of social and digital media use across the lifespan. They will do this through the augmentation of real-time studies of suicide risk already underway at Yale, using smartphone sensing as a method for digital phenotyping.

In this study led by Karim Ibrahim, PsyD, objective tracking of screentime is combined with neural, behavioral, and emotional measures to examine the impact of fast-paced digital media content like TikTok on children with ADHD. The intended outcome is to guide the development of evidence-based interventions to promote healthier digital habits and reduce risks for cognitive and emotional difficulties. “This study will advance understanding of how social media environments interact with core cognitive vulnerabilities in children with ADHD,” Ibrahim comments.

Real-time and long-term follow-up research is being conducted with adolescents who participated in a previous study on social anxiety and social media usage led by Eli Lebowitz, PhD; Rebecca Etkin, PhD; and Wendy Silverman, PhD. The plan for this project is to examine relationships between social anxiety and different types of social media experiences—both positive and negative—on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. The researchers note in their project summary, “Data from this project will further enhance understanding of which teens are most at risk by and likely to benefit from social media use and guide our development of an intervention tailored to support healthy digital habits for anxious youth.”

Marc Potenza, MD, PhD, and Jennifer Park, PhD, are addressing problematic use of social media in this project, and how this relates to ADHD, depression, and anxiety. They are using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to identify specific symptom-to-symptom interactions across four concerns. They note, “We hypothesize that symptoms related to functional impairment and inattention will occupy the most critical position in the network, and stronger symptom connectivity will be observed in older girls.” They will also be working with focus groups with youth to explore the impacts of problematic use of social media on mental health and strategies for reducing problematic use, with the aim of developing a toolkit for promoting healthier digital behaviors.

Pending future funding for this internal award, information about another round of applications will be announced in the coming year. Thomas Fernandez, MD, who chaired the award review committee this year and serves as YCSC vice chair for research, adds, “These pilot research awards will help our talented faculty develop expertise in this critical area and increase competitiveness for future external funding opportunities.”