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Teens and social media use: What's the impact?

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Find out how to help limit the negative impact of these popular apps on your teenager.

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oday's youngest generation with a label, born after 2000, are connected yet isolated, savvy but anxious, indulged yet stressed. They have grown up with social media, a constant proliferation of information on a fully mobile internet, the rise of Islamic State and other forms of terrorism. As these teenagers approach adulthood, against the political backdrop of Brexit and President Trump, how will they shape the future?

The single biggest difference between Generation Z and other generations is how connected they are, and have been since birth. On average, young people in the UK, aged between five and 16, spend three hours online every day. Connectivity permeates their lives - from friendships to relationships, news, entertainment, shopping - and has transformed how they interact. The most popular apps are Snapchat, Instagram and messaging app Kik; the average teenager has at least 150 followers on Instagram, and spends around half an hour a day on Snapchat.

Young people are also reported to have a much more fluid sense of sexual identity and gender. A National Citizen Service (NCS) poll of 1,000 teenagers published in October this year found that only 63% of teens aged 16 and 17 define themselves as 100% straight (compared with 78% of adults). Gender identity is also less binary, with 78% of young men identifying as 100% male, and 80% of young women identifying as 100% female, according to the same NCS poll.

How happy is Generation Z? A World Health Organisation survey carried out in 42 countries in 2013/4, and reported this year, found that young men and women in the UK are among the least satisfied with their lives, particularly 15-year-olds in England and Wales. The survey (which measures life satisfaction in relation to everything from relationships with family to school, mental health and drug use) showed that the highest rate of anxiety and health worries occurred among teenage girls in England, Wales and Scotland.

The biggest concern of young people calling ChildLine was mental health issues, accounting for 31% of calls

One of the starkest markers of Gen Z to date is the sharp rise in reported mental health issues. Young men and women in the UK are seeking treatment for low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and self-harm, in greater proportions than any other generation on record. (Some of this may be because these conditions were not widely diagnosed or understood in the past.)

According to the NSPCC, the biggest concern of young people calling its ChildLine in 2015/16 was mental health issues, accounting for 31% of telephone counselling sessions. In 1986, ChildLine's first year of taking calls, the most common reasons for contacting the NSPCC were sexual and physical abuse, and family issues. Mental health concerns didn't rank anywhere in the top 10. So what has changed?

"What we're seeing is a generation of children who are expressing much more clearly that they are just generally so unhappy with themselves and the situations around them," says Emily Cherry, head of participation at the NSPCC. "When it comes to low self-esteem, a lot of young people are putting that down to [concerns about] education, their future and the online world. Particularly the online world, and how it's following young people around - it's with them 24/7. Every time they switch on their phones they're getting messages about parties they haven't been invited to, or they're seeing photos of their friends doing things, or their whole self-worth is based on how many likes they're getting on Facebook. It absolutely permeates their sense of self-worth."

How happy is Generation Z? Photograph: Tempura/Getty Images

The mass availability of news has had an impact, Cherry adds, and there is a spike in the number of calls to ChildLine during major world events. "Not just terrorism - we also saw this with the US elections and Brexit. Online, they are seeing quite adult-focused news and phoning ChildLine really fearful for themselves and their future."

However, Cherry also points out that many of the children contacting ChildLine are doing so because there are fewer mental health services available to them. "Child and adolescent services in particular are massively stretched in the current climate. There is no support available, and that's a difference to what we were hearing in 1986."

Thirty-seven per cent of girls reported feeling unhappy, worthless or unable to concentrate

One of the most striking developments is the increase in depression and anxiety among young women in England, with more than a third reporting symptoms of distress, according to a survey of 13,000 14-year-olds by the Department for Education in 2014. Thirty-seven per cent of girls reported feeling unhappy, worthless or unable to concentrate, an increase of 4% since 2010, and more than double the proportion of boys reporting the same feelings.

Betsy de Thierry is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and a founding director of the Trauma Recovery Centre, an organisation that supports traumatised young people across the UK. She says the levels of stress among the children and teachers she works with is unprecedented. "The pressure on young people these days is absolutely extraordinary - it has never been the same before. They're living with lots of stress - their parents desperately wanting them to do well because of financial pressures, teachers wanting them to do well because they'll be assessed," De Thierry says.

She points to a shift of focus in schools, towards "hard" subjects and away from arts and sport, as one cause of increased pressure on young people. "I would argue that the biggest damage has been done in the reduction of creative arts, sports, music and free time. We know from neuroscience that young people are dependent on having time to play - that's how their brains develop, how they make sense of the world and how they become healthy young people. Without that, their behaviour changes and they act out or act in - and when they act in, they can self-harm and get depressed."

But the big positive is that teenagers are wise to the challenges facing their generation, and taking action. In 2014 the UK Youth Parliament, a youth organisation of elected members, voted to campaign on raising awareness around mental health issues among young people; in 2015, they called for greater health service provision and compulsory mental health education in schools, to help challenge damaging stereotypes.

This year, the youth parliament's focus is on education, under the banner " Curriculum for Life ". They are calling for schools to put more on the syllabus about finance, sex and relationships, and politics. At the same time, the parliament has focused on tackling racism, religious discrimination and the dangers of hate speech.

Generation Z's wider political engagement is going through a period of transformation. Young British voters have become more active in politics, with an estimated 58% of 18- to 24-year-olds voting in the 2015 general election, according to the British Election Study; this represents a significant jump, from 38% turnout among the same age group in 2005. For the EU referendum in June, an estimated 64% of young voters went to the polls, according to a survey conducted by Opinium and the London School of Economics - far higher than the initial gloomy estimates.

But while casting a vote at the polling station is one way of making your voice heard, young voters are finding other outlets for their political views. While their parents grew up in a world focused on two or three political parties and national debates, the approach of younger voters is quite different. Research by the European Commission in 2013 found that "young people regard voting as one option among many, and they show their political engagement in many different, issue-specific ways that can potentially influence policies more directly".

The feelings of social isolation reported by many teenagers can be hard for older people to understand. Photograph: Getty Images/Hero Images

While most of Generation Z are still too young to vote, their focus has shifted away from party politics to single-topic issues such as feminism or climate change; much of the civic engagement and organising they do takes place on social media rather than through traditional political structures.

Today's teenagers might be our most abstemious yet. Smoking and alcohol use is at its lowest levels among young people in England since 1982, when records began, according to a 2014 NHS survey. Less than one in five 11- to 15-year-olds said they had smoked, while 38% of adolescents in the same age group had tried alcohol at least once - also the lowest proportion since records began. Drug use among under-16s was also down: 15% of 11- to 15-year-olds reported having taken drugs of any kind, a dramatic decrease from 29% in 2001.

The feelings of social isolation reported by many teenagers can be hard for older people to understand. "There's a perception that this generation should be the happiest and the most content, because they've got so much connectivity, across the world, and so much information at their fingertips," Cherry says. "But that connectivity is actually disconnecting people from real friendships and the opportunity to enjoy the world together. It's creating absolutely unrealistic ideals that young people can't get to."

De Thierry believes the solution is more real-life contact and interaction. "We know that social isolation can have lifelong consequences on the brain and relationships and teenagers' ability to make sense of the world. Depression and anxiety are already on the rise and being normalised. When children have childhoods, and young people are allowed to be creative and spend time with each other, then they shouldn't be depressed or anxious."

Without intervention, De Thierry anticipates an increase in adult mental health issues, unemployment and burnout. "People think they've got 1,000 friends but in actual fact, who really knows them? It's probably nobody these days - not their parents, as they don't eat together and are working longer hours. And not their siblings, possibly because they're sitting in separate rooms on phones and they text each other. Being known is a really important part of being alive."

The contradictions of connectivity are the real challenge for Generation Z and for society at large. In many ways, they already appear more responsible than their predecessors - more politically engaged and eager to reframe our perspectives on sexual orientation and gender, while demanding action on the issues of mental health, education, equality and racism. As they emerge into adulthood, we will see what world they make.

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Who are Generation Z? The latest data on today's teens

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Sexually fluid, socially anxious, politically engaged, connected but lonely: what do we know about modern teens?

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I don't usually thrive under pressure. Indeed, I often find myself crumbling under it.

In a study conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), it was found that Millennials encounter greater levels of stress than any other generation. So much so that we've been bestowed the honorary title of Generation Stress. The research indicated that Millennials struggle with stress management, attributing the causes of their distress largely to money matters - speaking of which is well-embodied in Twenty One Pilots' hit jam 'Stressed Out'.

To some extent, I reckon that comes to no surprise, given the pressures youths are plagued by in general; the expectations to excel at school and beyond, to pursue big dreams, to carve out successful careers, to make our mark on the world.

The question then is, are we Millennials truly more stressed out than the generations before us, or do we merely feel like we are?

Because stress levels weren't of a particular interest or concern to scientists 50 years ago, historical data on the subject has been limited. In 2012 though, a couple of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University made a first-ever historical comparison among three US surveys which found that from 1983 to 2009, stress had increased 18% for women and 24% for men, and there was a 10% to 30% spurt in stress levels in almost each demographic category. This means no matter what demographic of the population, people are more stressed now than they were 30 over years back. The analysis also suggested a likelihood of stress reducing as people grew older, with youths feeling greater pressure than their aged counterparts.

Image Source: The Pride

So why is the world we're living in becoming more stressful? Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University School of Medicine, cited rising economic pressures and an addiction to being connected as reasons why we struggle to get away from life's pressures.

For Millennials, these stress factors are even more pronounced. We're faced with increased financial stress and unemployment woes amid an uncertain economy, and greater technology stress than other generations. Notably, it is the being raised by the Internet that marks the difference between our generation and the ones before us. We're getting unprecedented access to the personal lives of others especially through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. A Pew Research Centre survey intended to figure out if the use of social media is related to higher levels of stress found a 'cost of caring' on social media. Accordingly, social media users feel more stressed with heightened awareness of stressful events in other people's lives, even going to the extent of maintaining multiple social media platforms to present their lives differently to various groups of friends.

While at the workplace, Millennials feel that technology has made it such that they are "always on and cannot ever completely shut off from work". This rings very true, considering our debilitating smartphone addiction habits which have contributed to stress- and anxiety-laden lives.

In the US, more than 5 million college students battle mental health issues, as rates of anxiety and depression soar like never before. In Singapore, youths are showing an upward trend of self-harming behaviour as a coping mechanism for stress. As an alarming epidemic of stress unfolds before an entire generation, it's a worrying situation growing out of hand.

So no, we don't just feel like we're more stressed. We are.

Image Source: Flickr

More competitive than the generations before us, we've been raised with the necessary tools to reach for the stars, and instilled the notion that we can be anything we want to be. What this has done is create additional stress and fear of failure, as we end up taking it upon ourselves that there's no excuse for failings and no room for error. The trophy kids to helicopter parents, we've been familiarised with a make-or-break society that runs the habit of benchmarking success against one's level of achievement at school, the brand of university attended, and the salary raked in. And as much as we sometimes recognise that the word 'success' has been reduced to the mindless pursuit of predictable goals, we many a times still fall victim to a yardstick society.

It'd be ideal if society were more forgiving and all-encompassing. In a future Singapore that desires its youths to be innovative, creative, adaptable and gracious role models, we need to be given enough room to explore uncharted territories and test boundaries. Yet, 41% of 25- to 34-year-olds have a phobia of failing, admitting it to be the greatest obstacle in wanting to start a business. To be 'future ready', 1.2 million Singaporean Millennials will have to nip it in the bud and be able to embrace failure.

Breaking out of the cycle will mean that Generation Stress, with or without society's help, has to make a conscious choice. To see beyond the expectations placed on them, to take a breather from the rat race, to define its success, and to pursue it on their own terms.

The good news though, is that stress, at the right levels and doses, can actually make us stronger, smarter and happier. Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal mentions 'better health, emotional well-being and productivity at work - even during periods of high stress', if we see it in a positive light, rather than just purely harmful. By embracing stress as a way to nurture one's self and become more resilient to future challenges, Generation Stress could rise to the occasion.

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I don't usually thrive under pressure. Indeed, I often find myself crumbling under it. In a study conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), it was found that Millennials encounter greater levels of stress than any other generation. So much so that we've been bestowed the honorary title of Generation Stress.

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Being a millennial, I often find myself talking to my parents about today's worries and asking them for advice.

But I know as much as my dear parents try to relate to things I'm going through and offer their advice - they simply can't always understand what it's like to be a young adult in 2023. So I'm turning to the BuzzFeed Community to ask: what are some things you wish parents would realize about being a millennial or Gen Zer today?

Maybe you wish your parents realized the pressure that often exists to be active on social media and keep up with friends through that medium.

Perhaps you wish your parents knew how heavily student loan debt weighs on younger generations and how a lot of financial decisions are influenced by that debt.

Or maybe you wish your parents understood how nuanced dating can be in the digital age. Like, I've complained to my mom before about how a guy I was seeing didn't answer my text but he watched all my Instagram stories - and she was very confused by what I was talking about.

Lastly, perhaps you wish your parents realized that a lot of people in today's generation feel pressured to get married and have kids - but some don't want any of that.

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Tell Me About The Things You Wish Parents Understood About Being A Young Adult Today

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I'm still trying to explain to my mom how dating works in 2023...

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Who are the youth of today? Generation unlimited

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Who are the youth of today? Generation unlimited

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We have approached several young people to understand their vision and how they look at the society they live in and make it their own