Weird question. Obviously this is terrible for teenagers, and younger. Any evidence that this is no less bad for adults? We talk about restrictions for youth, which I agree with in general, but am unclear on the larger societal impact given we now have adult generations who have "grown up" on social media.
my first thought is that yes - social media can have a negative effect on adult mental health, but theoretically adults' brains have finished developing(ish) and they already have social circles built in meatspace. So if social media has negative effects... those effects are different than the challenges posed to younger adults/teens. (not to mention the effects that adult/parent social media use has on their own children, e.g. neglect, unrealistic expectations, etc) (I'll see myself and my pop-psych out)
From here It's a Gallup poll, but aside from "how do you feel" polls your other likely proxy is utilization? Which is definitely correlated with our fucked up healthcare system. And it's most assuredly picking up the tail end of COVID which was worst on teen mental health. That said, it says a lot. The biggest trend in child-rearing of the past 30 years has definitely been the decline of autonomy. You get most of that back when you become an adult - whether you know what to do with it or not is another question - but any expert you ask, from Turkle to boyd to Skenazy, will argue that the biggest contribution to teen mental health issues is the decline of autonomy.
Girls fared worse on other measures, too, with higher rates of alcohol and drug use than boys and higher levels of being electronically bullied, according to the 89-page report. Thirteen percent had attempted suicide during the past year, compared with 7 percent of boys. Teen girls ‘engulfed’ in violence and trauma, CDC finds AAP-AACAP-CHA Declaration of a National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental HealthAlmost 3 in 5 teenage girls reported feeling so persistently sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row during the previous year that they stopped regular activities — a figure that was double the share of boys and the highest in a decade, CDC data showed.
Even so, he said, “girls are more likely to respond to pain in the world by internalizing conflict and stress and fear, and boys are more likely to translate those feelings into anger and aggression,” he said. Boys are more likely to “mask depression,” he said, while girls may be more vulnerable to social media and “a culture obsessed with attractiveness and body image.”