Research has shown that some patterns of social media use are consistently linked to harm, such as engaging in social comparison and the displacement of essential activities like sleep. However, the evidence shows that social media is not intrinsically bad for youth. It also offers significant benefits like social connection, education and self-expression.
How we use social media is significant. Researchers have found that activities like messaging, posting or communicating with others are associated with positive well-being and social connection, whereas passive use such as scrolling feeds or browsing profiles is associated with higher levels of loneliness and negative well-being. Youth who feel that they are in control of their media use also report better mental well-being. Conversely, feeling dependent on social media is associated with feeling worse after using it. If youth constantly hear that they are addicted to social media or to digital devices, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Boosting self-efficacy—the feeling of being able to use media for one's own benefit—leads to better outcomes by helping people see their use as meaningful. In order to do that, we need to educate young people to feel empowered to take control of their digital habits.
Influencers may be seen as a microcosm of the risks that youth face from social media. Young people often form parasocial attachments with influencers, which may affect their self-image and they may also take influencers' messages as though it were personal advice from a friend. Influencers may promote unrealistic body images and share health misinformation, such as false treatments.
When it comes to advertising, while the disclosure of influencers' relationships with sponsors is important, evidence shows that just knowing that a post is paid content does not guarantee that youth will engage with it critically.
Addressing digital risks like the ones associated with influencers requires us to move beyond trying to avoid them completely and instead move to empower youth to manage them. To do that, we need to acknowledge that most young people have mixed feelings about social media and digital technology, and recognize that while most have a generally positive experience with it, they also often have qualms about its role in their lives. The youth in our research have advocated forcefully for healthier online spaces that embrace rights-respecting approaches such as safety and privacy by design.
Alongside any regulatory approaches that may be considered, any effective policy must include digital media literacy education, which equips youth with the critical thinking skills they need to learn how to recognize and counter the ways in which apps manipulate us into spending more time on them than we want to. It teaches them how to curate their feeds, how to choose healthier activities and content and how to recognize the blurred commercial intent of influencer marketing. We need to teach young Canadians that they, not their devices, are in control.