Dr Andrew Przybylski, Professor of Human Behaviour and Technology at the Oxford Internet Institute, advocates for research on teen mental health and technology usage that embraces nuance and centres teens’ unique experiences with social media.

Too often, media headlines blame social media for causing rising rates of depression and anxiety in young people, oversimplifying the issue and ignoring the complex factors at play.

But the reality, as shown in new research we published with colleagues from the University of Cambridge is more nuanced. Young people with diagnosed mental health conditions experience social media differently from those without such conditions.

We found that adolescents with mental health conditions reported spending more time on social media and some were less happy about the number of online friends they had than adolescents without conditions.

Teens with ‘internalising’ conditions like anxiety or depression, where distress is directed inward, said they were more likely to compare themselves to others on social media. In contrast, teens with ‘externalising’ conditions like ADHD or behaviour disorders, where distress is expressed outward, mainly reported just spending more time online, without the same level of social comparison.

It’s more insightful to start with how young people actually use social media, rather than assume it’s harming them. If research focuses on their real experiences, we can better understand their struggles and see their use of social media as a symptom, not a cause, of their mental health conditions. This shift lets us ask better questions and find more useful solutions than just banning new technologies.

It’s also one of the first studies to use clinical-level diagnoses, anchored in the experiences of young people’s reported use of social media. We wanted to move away from fixed narratives about all technology being ‘bad’ for all mental health conditions.

Most research overlooks young people who already have clinically-identified mental health issues, thereby missing key insights into how their existing conditions might affect the way they use and relate to technology.

We hope our findings inspire more data-driven research that focuses on the real experiences of young people with a range of mental health conditions, even if those insights don’t make for sensational headlines. Instead of relying on broad, oversimplified ideas about young people, their mental health, and their social media use, we want to uncover meaningful insights that can lead to smarter policy changes and better platform regulations. We should invest in research that reflects where adolescents truly are, not where we think they are.