Social Media and Young People: The Evidence Behind a Growing Public Debate

The scale of social media use among children and young people has become one of the most pressing public and political issues of the decade, yet the evidence base behind the debate remains deeply contested. According to research published by Ofcom in 2025, 79% of children aged 3–17 had a profile on at least one social media platform, video-sharing platform, messaging service, or livestreaming app—a figure that rises dramatically among teenagers, with 97% of 13–17-year-olds active on such platforms. As ministers across the UK consider regulatory responses, including proposed bans and age limits, the question of what social media actually does to young minds has never been more urgent. Children themselves report using these platforms for a variety of reasons: entertainment and relaxation, social interaction, and engagement with news and current affairs. But beneath the headline statistics lies a complex and often contradictory picture. Most research in this field is observational and cannot prove direct causation, and evidence for both benefits and harms continues to accumulate without yielding definitive conclusions. The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) has published a comprehensive briefing setting out what is currently known, what remains uncertain, and where the critical gaps in knowledge lie, drawing on national and international evidence relating to children and young people aged 0–24.

The potential benefits of social media are well-documented, though they are frequently overshadowed in public discourse by concerns about harm. Research has identified several potentially beneficial associations between social media use and positive outcomes for children and young people. These include community building, friendship and social connection—particularly valuable for those who may feel isolated in their offline lives—as well as identity exploration, affirmation and solidarity, allowing young people to discover and connect with others who share their backgrounds, interests, or experiences. Platforms also offer opportunities for learning, creativity and the development of financial literacy, alongside access to sources of support that might otherwise be difficult to reach. The role of social media in mental health support is a striking example: data from the 2025 OxWell student survey cited in the briefing found that 12% of the 24,188 students who reached that section of the survey had used social media for mental health support in the past year. That figure was significantly higher among vulnerable and minoritised groups—24% of those with eating difficulties, 26% of those with histories of self-harm, and 24% of trans and gender-diverse students. The researchers cautioned, however, that the study was cross-sectional and limited in its capacity to establish causation, with the possibility of reverse causation acknowledged. Qualitative interviews suggested that young people perceived online spaces like social media as offering support and connection, yet the finding underscores the dual-edged nature of these platforms: they can be a lifeline and a source of harm simultaneously.

The adverse consequences associated with social media use are equally well-documented and arguably more alarming to parents and policymakers. Research has linked social media use to a broad range of negative outcomes for children and young people. Mental health issues including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, self-harm and suicidal ideation feature prominently in the literature. Physical health concerns include poor sleep and health risk behaviours such as smoking and unhealthy diets. There are also grave risks of harassment, grooming and abuse, as well as financial harms relating to gambling, aggressive marketing, and misleading financial content. Behavioural issues, including exposure to hate and violence, have been identified, alongside associations with lower educational attainment. What complicates the picture is that benefits and harms can co-exist: the same platform can provide support for one young person and distress for another, and different people may experience the same content in entirely different ways. Critically, the evidence for these associations is not conclusive, and experts warn that observed effects in individual studies are often small or inconsistent. Where researchers do suggest causality, they frequently note that the direction of causality is unclear—poor mental health may lead to heavy social media use, just as heavy social media use may contribute to poor mental health. The briefing is careful to note that it considers evidence on digital harms more broadly where relevant, but does not cover in detail the role of schools, nor online environments beyond social media such as forums and gaming sites, with a complementary briefing on screen and AI use planned for 2026.

Understanding who is most at risk is a crucial part of the policy challenge, and here the briefing points to inequalities that already exist in wider society. While research on what factors affect the risk of potential negative impacts remains limited, experts have outlined possible groups who may be more vulnerable, and these typically reflect those who already experience disadvantage. The picture is nuanced: some academics report that minoritised young people particularly benefit from connecting with people they can identify with and share common ground with online, while others caution that such groups may be at greater risk of exposure to harms such as hate and discrimination, and of being targeted by abusers. Protective factors are also identified at multiple levels. Platforms themselves can reduce risks for children by complying with legislation, undertaking impact and risk assessments, employing safety-by-design principles, and addressing persuasive design features. Beyond policy, experts highlight several local factors that may shield young people from potential harms, including digital, algorithm and social media literacy; parental engagement, co-use and digital literacy; and strong offline social and emotional resources. These protective factors, the briefing suggests, are likely to be as important as regulation in shaping how children and young people experience social media, though evidence on their effectiveness remains limited.

The strength of the underlying evidence base is a major theme of the briefing, and the picture it paints is sobering for anyone seeking clear answers. Much of the research in this field is cross-sectional, observational and short-term, meaning it can demonstrate associations between social media use and specific outcomes but cannot prove causation. Observed effects are frequently small or inconsistent, and many studies rely on broad screen-time measures that focus on duration rather than the nature of usage, often based on self-reported data from users. Some experts go further, suggesting that the strength of the evidence is over-estimated, mis-communicated or selectively reported in public and academic discourse. This has direct implications for policy: decisions on regulation and intervention are being made on a foundation that remains shaky. The gaps in available evidence are extensive. Little is known about how social media affects younger children, or how interventions might mitigate any adverse impacts. There is a lack of longitudinal studies assessing long-term effects, and research beyond mental health—such as physical health and behavioural outcomes—remains underdeveloped. Researchers lack good measures of usage beyond time spent, including the nature of use, the role of platform design and commercial incentives, and the effects of stopping social media use altogether. There are also pressing questions about inequalities in experiences and impacts between groups, and how policy can stay relevant in a context of fast-paced technological change, including the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

The briefing also highlights significant challenges in defining the very subject of debate and in drawing boundaries around the issue. There is no official definition of social media, and the classification of platforms is contested: the UK government classes YouTube as social media, a designation YouTube disputes, and neither WhatsApp nor Signal is included in the proposed ban on social media for under-16s. For the purposes of the briefing, social media is defined as any website or application through which users can create and share content or participate in social networking. This scope covers children and young people aged 0–24, although most research in the field is based on adolescents aged 10–19 and young adults aged 19–24, with younger children significantly understudied. The briefing outlines potential policy approaches suggested by stakeholders—including legislation compliance, safety-by-design and impact assessments—though it presents these as non-exhaustive options rather than recommendations. Finally, the document notes a correction made on 27 August 2026 to the OxWell survey data cited in its section on mental health support, clarifying the sample size and statistical findings for accuracy. That correction, alongside the rapidly evolving technological landscape and ongoing policy debates, underscores just how fast-moving both the evidence base and the public conversation around social media and young people have become. As the Ofcom data makes clear, social media is now a near-universal feature of childhood and adolescence in the UK, and ensuring that the response to it is grounded in robust evidence remains an urgent and unresolved challenge.