Why young brains are especially vulnerable to social media

On February 3, 2022, Zara Abrams addressed youth and social media in the APA report on “Six things psychologists are talking about.” What captured my attention was the beginning:

Starting around age 10, children’s brains undergo a fundamental shift that spurs them to seek social rewards, including attention and approval from their peers.

At the same time, we hand them smartphones (Kids & Tech, Influence Central, 2018).

Social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat have provided crucial opportunities for interaction that are a normal part of development—especially during a time of severe isolation prompted by the pandemic. But they’ve also been increasingly linked to mental health problems, including anxiety, depressive symptoms, and body image concerns.

Next she addresses brain changes related to social reward, noting that between ages 10 and 12, “receptors for the ‘happy hormones’ oxytocin and dopamine multiply in a part of the brain called the ventral striatum, making preteens extra sensitive to attention and admiration from others.” The other critical brain region is the ventral pallidum, a region of the brain key for motivating action. Both of these subcortical structures “are older parts of the brain that drive instinctual behaviors.”

She then contrasts the teen and adult brains as follows:

In adulthood, social media use is also linked to activation in the brain’s reward centers, but two key differences may lessen harm, Prinstein said. First, adults tend to have a fixed sense of self that relies less on feedback from peers. Second, adults have a more mature prefrontal cortex, an area that can help regulate emotional responses to social rewards.

We know that, while teens always feel social pressure, online media is both more public and more permanent, not like that day you were embarrassed by what you chose to wear to school. In the final section, she addresses the impacts of these teen-adult differences:

Further research shows how this biological vulnerability plays out in the lives of children and teens. Younger social media users are more likely than older ones to have body image issues, while kids who use Instagram or Snapchat before age 11 face a higher risk of online harassment (Saiphoo, A. N., & Vahedi, Z., Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 101, 2019; Charmaraman, L., et al., Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 127, 2022).

These and other findings have prompted recommendations from the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, MD, that social media and other technology companies help minimize fallout from their products, including by prioritizing the wellbeing of young users and by sharing their data with independent researchers (Protecting youth mental health (PDF, 1.01MB), The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, 2021).

“It’s time we stopped trying to make a profit on kids’ developing brains,” Prinstein said. “For the first time in human history, we have given up autonomous control over our social relationships and interactions, and we now allow machine learning and artificial intelligence to make decisions for us.”

“We have already seen how this has created tremendous vulnerabilities to our way of life. It’s even scarier to consider how this may be changing brain development for an entire generation of youth,” he said.

This work makes it imperative that diagnosticians and clinicians collect information about media use and make clear recommendations to parents.