There’s been a lot of attention in recent years on youth and mental health, especially as it connects to social media use.
A new study just published in the Journal of Affective Disorders looks specifically at some of the most vulnerable young people in Texas.
Betsy Kennard is the study’s lead researcher and is a psychologist and researcher based at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She talked with Texas Standard about her findings. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: One thing that I think sets your study apart is the population you analyzed. Could you tell us what the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Research Network Registry is?
Betsy Kennard: It’s a collaborative learning health care system comprised of 12 academic medical centers across Texas. And in this registry, we’re following these children longitudinally.
We are looking at kids who are being treated for depression and suicide. This population is more vulnerable because they have either depression or suicidal thoughts and behaviors and are in treatment.
Are you doing surveys? Or how are you determining from this sample group relationships with social media?
Yes, we are doing surveys. I will say that the network is a little more complicated than just surveys because at different times we will interview them and we will do diagnostic interviews and we also do follow-up to make sure that they’re still in care and to see if they have any needs.
This is funded by the state of Texas and we’re very appreciative to the state for their interest not only in the treatment of these children but also in following these children to figure out best patterns of care and what their needs are.
So what were your top-line findings?
Well basically we were looking to see whether these kids had levels of problematic media use, and we define problematic social media use as being unhappy or discontent or disappointed or upset when they cannot access social media.
And we did find that about 40% of those kids that are in treatment for either depression or suicidal thoughts and behaviors have problematic media use, where they have trouble when disconnecting from social media
Did this surprise you in any way?
I think it did to the extent that … What we found was that when we looked at these kids, those with problematic use and those without, we found that those with more problematic use had higher levels of depression, high levels of anxiety, more suicidal risk or suicidal thinking, as well as poor well-being, not able to function as well at school, had some health problems.
And we know that social media is very complicated. I want to emphasize that, because there are some really positive aspects of social media. But these are the things that we worry about is when there’s problematic use or when they don’t have enough activities and things that are apart from social media or that they’re really connected to social media to the extent that they cannot disengage from it.
Is it too simplistic to describe this as addictive behavior, or is that an appropriate word?
Actually, that word is used quite a bit, and I think it very much mimics addictive behaviors such as, you know, substance use or gambling or things where people have trouble disengaging from problematic behavior.
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So what does this tell you about how adults should be helping young people navigate social media and online spaces?
I think my main message would be for parents to talk to their children about their social media use, to monitor their social media use to see that they have enough activities apart from that, in-person social activities.
Social media is not all bad and [do] not to get too alarmed, but just to have these conversations about what the children are seeing online, how they’re using it online.
Also, I always tell parents to monitor their own behavior. Are they monitoring the inability to have time away from their phone or their computer? Because kids will pick up on that.
And so I think a family conversation about social media use and how the family wants to handle it, like a social media plan, what are the rules about social media in the home? And I think having those rules as well as those expectations are very important.
What are the gaps in the research right now? What more do you want to know about this?
We are involved in a study right now [in which] we want to see if these patterns continue, what are the outcomes over time for kids who have this social media use that’s problematic.
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