Online Health and Happiness
Greece has become the latest country to announce a ban on under-15s using social media, following similar moves by Australia in December and amid rising fears that the platforms could be harmful to young people.
This year’s World Happiness Report, released last month, examines the effect of social media and internet use on the wellbeing of adolescents around the globe. It groups online activities into two areas: Communication, news, learning and content creation; social media, gaming and browsing for fun. The study found that the first group was associated with higher life satisfaction while the second set of activities was linked to lower life evaluations.
The association between problematic social media use and reduced wellbeing was stronger among young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. And the relationship between wellbeing and online activity varied depending on the age of the user. The report said: “It is strongly negative for Gen Z, moderately negative for Millennials, near zero for Gen X and slightly positive for Baby Boomers.”
The report also found that it wasn’t just the individual’s use of social media that could have an effect on them but also the online activity of their peers.
It added: “The digital environment matters: the effect of internet use on wellbeing depends on how common social media use is within an individual’s demographic peer groups. Internet use is beneficial when peer-group exposure is low but becomes increasingly harmful as social media use becomes more widespread among one’s peers.”
