A new survey from the American Survey Center at the American Enterprise Institute complicates the tidy story most people tell about teenagers and social media. That complication is exactly what K-12 school leaders need to hear.
The survey, authored by Daniel Cox, finds real harm associated with social media use among teenagers. But it’s not the harm, and not the population, that dominates the public conversation.
The effects show up almost entirely among heavy users, teens spending four or more hours a day on these platforms. Moderate and light users look statistically similar to each other. And the effects concentrate among girls. Heavy-using teen girls report satisfaction with their lives at less than half the rate of girls who use social media lightly, a 30-point gap.
Sleep, reading for pleasure, excitement about the future, and self-rated health all show the same pattern. Notably, the survey finds no relationship between social media use and friendship formation or satisfaction. This runs counter to the common claim that these platforms simply make teenagers lonelier.
