A survey of US teens and parents: 48% of teens say social media harms people their age, up from 32% in 2022, and girls' experiences skew more negative at times
Most teens credit social media with feeling more connected to friends. Still, roughly 1 in 5 say social media sites hurt their mental health …
Context & Ripple Effects
Teen attitudes have long contained a tension between connection and concern: a 2022 survey found that many teens valued social media for friendship and creativity, even as perceptions of harm were less pronounced. This new result shows that the negative side of that balance has become more salient since the 2022 teen social-media survey.
The finding also sits alongside reported concerns about time spent on devices and social platforms, particularly among girls, in a 2024 Pew survey of teen screen-time perceptions. It matters because the survey separates social media's social benefits from teens' growing concern about its effects on their peers.
First-order effects
- Social platforms face a more skeptical teen audience: 48% now say social media harms people their age, while about one in five say it hurts their own mental health.
- Girls' more negative reported experiences make aggregate engagement or satisfaction measures less informative; platform and parental responses need to account for uneven effects across users.
Second-order effects
- The coexistence of connection benefits and perceived harm shifts the discussion from whether teens use social media to how particular experiences—such as time spent and negative interactions—are managed.
- Parents and youth-facing institutions have stronger evidence to prioritize guardrails and conversations around use, rather than treating access alone as the central issue.
Third-order effects
- If this perception trend persists, teen social products will increasingly be judged on whether they can preserve social connection while reducing experiences users associate with harm, especially for vulnerable groups.
- The broader market may move toward more differentiated youth-safety design and measurement, although this survey alone cannot establish which product changes would improve outcomes.
The trend: Teen social-media use is becoming a trade-off between valued connection and rising perceived personal and peer harm, increasing pressure for more tailored youth experiences.