WRITTEN BY: SARAH RIVERA, LPC-S Thinking about the start of the school year, chances are if you have a teenager in middle or high school, you’re already noticing some unique behaviors. Perhaps they are growing more demanding, more emotional, or more anxious as they’re thinking about this school year. I can bet they have been showing you some big emotions over the past few months that have you wondering, What on earth is going on?
Minor issues with friends appear to be major blowouts. The thought of being left out or the fear of missing out can suddenly feel like the difference between having a negative reputation and a positive one. Their mood seems to change incredibly quickly, especially when social situations happen. So, how might social media be affecting their mental health? While social media certainly plays a role, adolescence and navigating the middle and high school terrain can be overwhelming and stressful all on its own.
Why Does Everything Feel So Intense?
While it would be easy for us as parents to dismiss or disregard some of these big feelings, it’s very important for us to pay attention. Rather than thinking, This really isn’t that serious, I would challenge you to consider ways to accept your child’s feelings without making them feel ridiculous or out of control.
Remember, what may seem relatively small to us as adults can feel enormous to a teenager. Adolescence and puberty have a way of elevating hormones, which contribute to mood fluctuations and sensitivity. Emotions can be highly reactive, which at times can influence impulse control. At the same time, their bodies are changing—either faster or slower than their peers—contributing to their seemingly never-ending comparison of themselves to everyone around them.
They’re also trying to figure out some pretty big questions:
Who am I? Where do I fit in? Do people like me? Am I normal? What do other people think about me?
And this is without incorporating social media.
How Social Media May Be Affecting Your Teen’s Mental Health
Unfortunately, month after month, we’re seeing more participation in social media activity and more platform accounts being created. It’s becoming increasingly rare for a teen not to have access to a social media platform or to communicate socially in this manner.
One of the biggest differences for today’s teenager is that there is almost no way to completely disconnect. Unlike us, after school there was some social separation from the world around us. We went home. There was a natural break between what happened at school and what happened at home.
For many teenagers today, there is no unwinding time. School may end, but the social interaction doesn’t. The group chats continue. Someone posts a photo. Someone comments on a video. They see the party they weren’t invited to. They notice who is hanging out without them. They see how many likes someone else received. They watch what seemingly everyone else is doing, wearing, buying, achieving, and experiencing.
Their social world follows them home. Access to information, photos, comments, and videos online can increase their need to constantly compare themselves, worry that they are missing out, or seek validation based on how many likes and views they may obtain. The other end of this extreme can lead to things like cyberbullying, doomscrolling, or fixating on “hater” messaging and negative comments. Social media isn’t necessarily the cause of teen anxiety and poor mental health, but it certainly has the potential to amplify vulnerabilities, insecurities, and anxiety that are already present.
What Constant Social Media Use Can Affect
With a constant preoccupation with what’s going on in the social media world, we can see teenagers having increased problems regulating their sleep, controlling their emotions, and managing impulses.
Losing sight of how much time they are spending scrolling can also lead to procrastination or a lack of prioritization of more important things. Homework gets pushed aside. Bedtime gets later. Responsibilities are forgotten. Physical activity decreases.
Lack of mobility and movement can contribute to physical issues, lack of motivation, and minimizing responsibilities. And when a teenager is already anxious, tired, overwhelmed, and emotionally reactive, these habits can create an unhealthy cycle.
Before You Take the Phone Away, Get a Baseline
Now, before you think about removing your child’s social media accounts completely, consider obtaining a baseline. In therapy, we often look at the starting point of one’s behavior before deciding what needs to change. Start by asking:
- How many hours per day are they spending on social media platforms?
- How does that add up over the course of a week?
- Does their use seem healthy or unhealthy?
- What time of day are they using social media most often?
- Is it during school hours?
- Immediately after school?
- During homework?
- Or when they should be sleeping?
- What happens to their mood after they’ve been scrolling?
- Are certain platforms, accounts, or interactions more likely to trigger anxiety, anger or rejection?
You may learn quite a bit simply by paying attention to the patterns. From there, consider encouraging a social media detox or intentional time away from a device. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean deleting every account or taking the phone away indefinitely.
Help them create opportunities to disconnect and reconnect with the world around them. Side Note: leading by example is huge. Consider answering the above questions from your perspective too. Modify based on work and housework.
Participation in extracurricular activities and sports has a natural way of removing their attention from a device and allowing them to be interactive with the world around them. Encourage movement, hobbies, face-to-face friendships, family activities, time outdoors, and reasonable boundaries around when phones are put away.
Sleep should also be protected. If your teenager’s phone is keeping them awake late into the night, that is an important place to intervene.
Don’t Dismiss the Anxiety—Help Them Learn What to Do With It
One of the most important things parents can do is resist the urge to immediately talk their teenager out of what they’re feeling. When we say:
- “There’s nothing to worry about.”
- “You’re making this into a bigger deal than it is.”
- “Who cares what they posted?”
We may intend to reassure them, but our teenager may hear, You shouldn’t feel this way. Instead, try:
“I can tell this is really bothering you. Tell me what you’re worried is going to happen.”
Listen before immediately trying to solve the problem. Help them name the actual fear. Ask what part of the situation they can control. Our job isn’t necessarily to remove every uncomfortable situation from our teenager’s life. Sometimes our job is to help them discover that they can experience discomfort and still get through it.
When Professional Support Can Help
Some anxiety is a normal part of adolescence. The bigger question is whether anxiety is beginning to interfere with your teenager’s ability to live their everyday life. Pay attention when anxiety begins consistently affecting their sleep, school attendance or performance, eating habits, friendships, family relationships, extracurricular activities, or willingness to participate in normal age-appropriate experiences.
And remember: your teenager doesn’t have to be in crisis before counseling can be helpful. Therapy can help teenagers understand what they’re feeling and why, learn how to regulate strong emotions, challenge anxious thoughts, tolerate uncomfortable situations, communicate their needs, and develop healthier coping skills. Your teenager may not be “being dramatic.” Their experience really does feel intense to them. The goal isn’t to eliminate every anxious feeling or remove every difficult experience. It’s to help them develop the skills to understand their mental health and emotions, regulate them, and move through them—without allowing big emotions or social media to run their life.
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