Commentary
In his
book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt
writes: “At the turn of the millennium, technology companies created a set of world-changing products that transformed life not just for adults but for children, too. … Yet, the companies that developed them had done little or no research on the mental health effects. When faced with growing evidence that their products were harming young people, they mostly engaged in denial, obfuscation, and public relations campaigns.”
Evidence of the negative effects of social media on teenagers, particularly teenage girls, came to light again last week, when the Centers for Disease Control issued a new
report showing an alarming 60 percent jump in clinical depression rates among teenage girls during the period of 2013–2023.
Teenage girls have seemingly always been, sadly, victims of sexual objectification, whether it be from teenage males with raging hormones or an entertainment culture that sexualizes them at an early age, playing to male lust to earn ratings and dollars.
But with the emergence of social media and smartphones, this objectification was put on steroids. It is not a mere coincidence that this increase in clinical depression rates was concurrent with nearly universal teenage smartphone ownership, with approximately 78 percent of teenagers spending three hours of screen time or more each day.
As Laura DeCook of the California-based company LDC Wellbeing
puts it: “Social media is major factor, especially for girls. It fosters insecurity, cyberbullying, and pressure to perform. Girls are more likely to internalize emotions, which shows up more in diagnoses like depression.”
As a group of young ladies wrote in a
blog for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation: “For our generation, social media was like a toxic best friend. Instead of making you feel insecure by giving you a backhanded compliment about your outfit, social media algorithms feed you images of thousands of other women who are prettier, or skinnier, or richer than you. Like a toxic best friend preys on your insecurities to feel better about themselves, social media thrives on your self-doubt to make money.”
Another one of the young women said: “I wanted to fit a certain niche beauty standard that I saw on social media. ‘Model skinny,’ instead of curvier and more sexualized; I wanted to be the type of pretty that was praised instead of the type of pretty that is ‘slut-shamed’ and overly sexualized.”
In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook’s own
research shows they make body images worse for one in three teenage girls.
But it is not just body image comparisons and comments that are driving teenage girls to be depressed. In a recent
article by Sean Selai in the Washington Times, he quotes Alison Bonacci, the director of education for Cyber Safety Consulting, a company that helps schools develop internet safety policies: “[Girls are] also more likely than boys to experience digital drama like exclusion and gossip online.”
Thus, teenage girls face a digital world where they are pressured to conform to certain body images, become targeted by predators, mocked by their peers, and ostracized if they choose not to participate in an online game of one-upmanship based on looks.
As Jonathan Haidt
states, “The more time a girl spends on social media, the more likely she is to be depressed or anxious. Girls who say they spend five or more hours each weekday on social media are three times as likely to be depressed as those who report no social media time.”
He
adds, “The overwhelming feeling I get from the families of both boys and girls is that they are trapped and powerless in the face of the biggest mental health crisis in history for their children. What should they – what should we – do?”
While parents and schools try to implement policies limiting smartphone use among teenagers, as anyone who has ever parented a teenager knows, they are going to find a way to get around any regulation to access content. The key is to force social media companies, which serve as the gateway for such content and pressure on teenage girls, to clean up their act.
One of the main loopholes exploited by these social media companies is that Congress has yet to reform
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which enables these companies to avoid liability for and make money from harmful content on the internet, particularly content that negatively affects the mental and physical health of children.
But for those who parent teenage girls, they will need to not only be extra vigilant of what their daughters are viewing online, but also, particularly fathers, reaffirming their worth and inner beauty in order to counteract the toxic influence of social media that has led to this alarming rise in depression.
It will be through genuine human—rather than digital—connection that we can reverse this tragic trend and restore a powerful sense of security, self-worth, and confidence in our teenage girls.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
