The Impact of Social Media on the Mental Health of Teenagers and Young Adults

Human beings, like many other animals, are social by nature and therefore depend on companionship to thrive. In recent years, this search for companionship has been facilitated by social media and technology in general. To this end, social networking platforms, including Facebook, X, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, among many more, have become very popular. In fact, recent data shows that as of January 2026, the number of people using social networks globally stood at 6.05 billion, which is a steep increase from the 2.73 billion in 2017 (Dixon, 2026). The data also shows that the majority of people using these social networks are either teenagers or young adults. At the same time, adolescents around the world have been experiencing a decline in their mental health over the past decade, which begs the question of whether this trend is influenced, at least in part, by the increased use of social networks for companionship (Fassi et al., 2025). This essay argues that, indeed, social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are a primary cause of rising anxiety and depression among teenagers because they promote unrealistic comparisons, enable cyberbullying, and disrupt sleep.

In addition to upward self-comparisons, social media creates an ideal platform for online bullying behind faceless accounts. Social networks come with the anonymity that gives aggressors the confidence to engage in harmful actions that they would not consider in face-to-face interactions (Anguyo et al., 2023). Although bullying was there well before social networks, these platforms have facilitated its increase. In fact, research shows that over a third of adolescents globally have become victims of cyberbullying (Anguyo et al., 2023). It also shows that the likelihood of this happening increases with the increase in the time spent on social platforms. For example, a teenage boy with a different appearance than others, such as dwarfism, can get a lot of derogatory comments and hurtful messages that cause emotional distress. Anguyo et al. (2023) note that this in turn can affect their sleep patterns, feelings of helplessness, and even depression. As such, the anonymity provided by social media platforms creates an ideal environment for trolling, which, like upward comparisons, also affects the mental health of teenagers and young adults.

This paper acknowledges two arguments that could be made on how social networks can improve mental health. To begin with, some argue that social media helps in reducing feelings of isolation by creating a support network, which is supported by Kusumota et al. (2022). Although this is true, the positive effects of companionship are greatly outweighed by the negative effects discussed above. Research by Atske and Atske (2025) shows that almost half of the teenagers think social media has mostly a negative effect on people their age. Furthermore, the companionship achieved through social media is mostly superficial because social media is inherently impersonal, which means friends cannot provide meaningful emotional support. An additional argument against this is that social media provides more access to information and resources regarding mental health, so, in theory, it could be a resource to help youth understand mental health issues, identify the signs of mental health issues, and access professional services. But this argument does not take into account that, in fact, the majority of adolescents and young adults use social media for entertainment purposes, not for educational purposes.

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