The high numbers of Generation Zers who report negative effects from social media and who use it for several hours per day are unsurprising.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote recently for the New York Times on surveys he and his colleagues conducted asking Gen Z adults about their experiences with social media. In the article, he explains that 62% of Gen Zers use social media for four hours or more per day, that the groups reporting negative effects from social media are largely female and LGBT, and that significant shares of Gen Zers wish certain social media platforms did not exist, with Twitter at 50% and TikTok at 47%.
If not surprising, it is interesting that so many hold great regret toward social media while continuing to overuse it. The trend speaks to a general human tendency — we see the same pattern with substance abusers — but involves a digital platform, something less physically gripping than drugs or alcohol. One would think it is at least a little bit easier to quit and remain detached from social media. Nevertheless, negative effects abound, mostly in the form of serious mental illnesses. These harms select specific groups within Gen Z.
In a post on his Substack, Haidt details a point that he alludes to in the newspaper article: “Social media disproportionately hurts young people from historically disadvantaged groups.” What “disadvantaged” means could be endlessly broken down and causally linked, but the post focuses on the LGBT subset.
If the data show that 47% of LGBT Gen Z adults, compared to 35% of non-LGBT people, report negative effects on “emotional health,” it does not make sense for critics of social media regulation to cite the well-being of LGBT teenagers as a reason for opposition. It is clear that “discussions about difficult subjects” on social media have negatively affected LGBT mental health more than any other group. (And these mental problems are really troubling.) It must follow that platform regulation would serve to protect against these effects despite what LGBT advocates claim.
The dissonance boils down to liberal elite hypocrisy, which is part of why mental health decline has run alongside the breakdown of the family. Tech leaders, and other well-off liberals, know what is best for their children, so they choose to “delay their children’s access to digital devices, sending their kids to tech-free Waldorf schools and making their nannies sign screen-time contracts,” Haidt wrote on Substack. They advocate otherwise for everyone else, especially the beloved “marginalized,” in the name of acceptance and societal progress.
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Similar elite hypocrisy on marriage is well documented by sociologist Brad Wilcox, in book and article alike. These elites know that a traditional, intact family most often leads to success, and they ensure it for themselves. For others, they push “that all family forms are equally valid and valuable,” according to Wilcox. Studies on family structure and economic mobility make it clear that this idea does not lead to success.
Thus, fervent competition over which is the more pro-family party has taken hold of this campaign season. The tech question is gaining more and more attention, especially while the House decides what to do with the Kids Online Safety Act. The public’s attachment to proven harmful lifestyles is not surprising given what the country’s most powerful leaders promote, but it has to be relinquished at some point. The country clearly needs help doing so.