The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health

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Orburn is one of the leading researchers investigating how digital technologies affect adolescent mental health. She runs a lab at Cambridge funded by public research bodies. Her studies suggest that if you start using social media more, you're more likely to feel worse. Feeling bad might make you scroll mindlessly on your phone, for example. Orburn acknowledges there has been a general decline in mental health amongst young people - but is social media really the cause?

There’s a growing feeling that social media is bad for us: bad for society and bad for our wellbeing. That trend has culminated in a new wave of legislation in the United States aiming to address social media’s impact on young people’s mental health. But in this episode, Elaine Moore, deputy editor of the FT’s Lex column, looks at some of the unanswered questions over whether social media really causes us harm, and what legislation will mean for the future of the social media business model. Are we in the throws of a technological panic?

In this episode, the third in a series on social media, Elaine speaks to Emma Lembke, co-founder of youth advocacy group Log Off; Katie Paul, director at the Tech Transparency Project; Amy Orben, head of the Digital Mental Health Group at the University of Cambridge; and FT tech reporter Hannah Murphy.

Since the publication of Katie Paul’s investigation into the trade of looted Middle Eastern antiquities on Facebook, Meta has changed its policy on the sale of historical artefacts.

Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.

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Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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