By Gil Sommers and Jessica Li
Teens and social media has become a issue of major public concern, especially in the wake of Surgeon General’s May 2024 warning that mental health and social media is “the defining public health crisis of our time.” However, one perspective that is often overlooked in this conversations is perspective of teens themselves. TYDE researchers are up-to-date on the the most recent research, but our team believes we can get a richer understanding of the issues by straight to the source. And that’s what we wanted – we wanted to create an opportunity to hear from teenagers and learn what they had to say about how social media impacts adolescence.
To learn from teens themselves, TYDE partnered with Light House Studio, a Charlottesville-based film school. In July 2024, we offered a weeklong documentary filmmaking workshop focused on helping local teens tell stories about the role of social media use and mental health.
The Research on Teens, Social Media, and Mental Health
The first day of the workshop included teaching teens about most recent scientific findings on youth mental health and social media. TYDE recruited a group of UVA undergraduates to help conduct a literature review and translate the most important themes to a high school audience. The research assistants found that according to the psychological research, teens have a very complex relationship social media. Some studies showed negative correlations between social media and mental health, including how social media affects friendships, the way perceptions of our bodies, sleep schedules, tendency toward substance use, and anxiety. Other studies showed positive effects between social media and mental health, such as how social media can provide safe spaces for marginalized communities, such as LGBTQ+, and helps us to stay in immediate touch with friends and family who can act as social support structures.
Teens Launch Documentary-style Project on Social Media and Mental Health
This presentation was the jumping off point for teens to talk about these different issues and how they might explore them through film. The topics the teens discussed ranged from a variety of areas, such as misinformation, parent’s misunderstandings, depictions of drug and alcohol use, body-image insecurities, distractibility and doom-scrolling, and the peer pressure some teenagers feel to engage with social media. They brainstormed with LHS to better present diverse perspectives. They used various creative ways to explore their personal and family backgrounds, social media presence, and past experiences to generate insights into mental health issues.
One of the film projects that emerged was a series of documentary style interviews with their peers. Sitting down in matte-black directors chairs in front of Light House Studio’s main projector screen, illuminated by lightboxes and smiles, one of the teens asked their peers about their relationship with social media.
What Are Teens Saying?
Much like the scholarly research, the teens found that their group had very mixed relationships with social media. One student said they “didn’t receive a phone until high school,” and that they didn’t feel as if phones “were that important” to them. The urge to get online was social. Mostly, teens felt they “had to get a phone because [their] friends had phones.”
At the end of the day, this wasn’t an uncommon sentiment, and most of the teenagers responded that if their friends didn’t use phones or social media, neither would they. As one student put it, “you just have to know what the new meme is, because if you don’t, you’re not cool, and that affects your friendships.” Another teen said that “sometimes adults make [them] feel shamed for having a life on
social media, but literally [they’ve] never known anything else.”
The teens also expressed awareness about how some social media apps and advertisers manipulate drinking and drug use behavior in their peers. Ultimately, it seems that teenagers know more than adults tend to give them credit for. The teens in this documentary-style interview spoke a great deal about their awareness of the dangers of social media, saying things like you can’t trust everything you read, because “everyone can post regardless of [their] education on something.”
At the conclusion of the workshop, Light House hosted a screening where the students shared their films with an audience of their peers and family. The experience at LHS has enabled them to incorporate the new insights gained this time into their lives, allowing them to better focus on and spread information about mental health and wellness.
