A UK study of 7,000 people aged 16 to 18: 48% agreed with the statement “I think I am addicted to social media”; 57% of girls agreed, compared to 37% of boys
Exclusive: Millennium Cohort's finding raises questions about why a large proportion has a difficult relationship with social media X: @soundmigration . Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot X: Mark Malone / @soundmigration : A simply enforced regulation can help stop harms of social media companies. Turn recommender systems off by default. Let people decide themselves to take part in platform algorithmic amplification Don't let the companies weasel out of this. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Forums: Hacker News : Revealed: Almost half of British teens feel addicted to social media, study says BeauHD / Slashdot : Almost Half of British Teens Feel Addicted To Social Media, Study Says
Context & Ripple Effects
The finding adds a UK cohort-based measure of teens’ own sense of problematic use to an already active debate over online harms. Earlier UK public-opinion research found broad concern about harmful online experiences and rising support for social-media regulation, reflected in Ofcom’s earlier survey of public concern.
It also sharpens the gender dimension of adolescent social-media research: prior UK analysis linked heavy use during adolescence with lower life-satisfaction ratings in distinct developmental windows, while this study shows girls are substantially more likely than boys to describe their use as addictive.
First-order effects
- Researchers, schools, and policymakers gain a salient self-reported measure of problematic social-media use among 16- to 18-year-olds, rather than relying only on time-spent metrics.
- The 20-point gap between girls and boys makes gender a central variable for any teen-wellbeing assessment or intervention prompted by the study.
Second-order effects
- The results strengthen pressure for platforms and regulators to examine whether engagement and recommender features affect vulnerable teen groups differently, alongside broader concern about harmful online experiences.
- They also complicate a purely negative account of social media: teen surveys have found meaningful perceived benefits such as connection and broader friend groups, so responses will need to distinguish harmful use from use teens value, as in earlier teen reporting on social media’s benefits.
Third-order effects
- If self-reported addiction continues to recur across cohorts, youth-safety debates may shift from screen-time totals toward product-design and wellbeing measures that can reveal who experiences use as difficult to control.
- The gender gap suggests that one-size-fits-all youth safeguards may be insufficient; durable policy and platform evaluation could increasingly require outcomes broken out by demographic group, though this survey alone cannot establish causation.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from measuring adolescent social media by access and hours to judging it by perceived loss of control and unequal wellbeing outcomes.