States are trying policy prescriptions to mitigate youth mental health issues related to social media use. What works and what doesn’t?

Teaching young people how to be savvy with TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube may be parents’ best bet for helping their kids skirt some deleterious effects of social media overuse. 

Other approaches, including controlling access and limiting exposure, tend to find wider adoption. But evidence supporting their effectiveness is thin.

Meanwhile, imbuing youth with insider-level knowhow—aka social media literacy—tends to remain underleveraged as well as understudied. Yet it “may be one of the more promising strategies” available since it “teaches young people about both the risks and the benefits of social media.”

The observation is from the lead author of a new study published in the Journal of Policy Practice and Research.

Melissa Villodas, PhD, MSW, and colleagues at George Mason University define media literacy as the knowledge, tools and support (often provided by educators, caregivers or platforms) that help young people understand how to use social media safely, responsibly and thoughtfully.

The paper analyzes interventions—16 in number—that have state-level policies in place to help parents, educators and caregivers curb overuse of social media by young people. 

“Policies that center media literacy educate youth about their motivations for use, help them to evaluate the credibility of the content they encounter—especially during a time of increased AI content—and identify who it is safe to engage with online,” Villodas and fellow researchers write. “Media literacy-oriented policies operate after a young person has entered social media spaces and represent a downstream approach to support youth mental health.”

Offering a rationale for the study’s timeliness, the authors cite several sobering statistics: 

• Over the last decade, the prevalence of mental health challenges among youth in the U.S. has markedly worsened.
   
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 29 years, and suicide deaths increased 62% from 2007 to 2021.
   
• Depression, anxiety and suicide-related issues have become disturbingly common among young people.  

Just 1 state proactive on media literacy 

For the study, Villodas and team focused on examining policy texts that describe protection of youth mental health vis-à-vis social media use. 

The researchers homed in on policy texts discussing mental health, discrimination or sexually explicit content. Search keywords included pornography, child sexual abuse and other terms denoting aspects of social media that prior studies have shown to affect youth mental health. 

They also looked at policies that discussed safe uses of social media or educational initiatives related to the present study.

Further, Villodas and colleagues analyzed data on social media platforms believed to encourage addictive use by design. 

Their key findings, which reflect data captured up to November 2024:

• Of the 16 enacted policies reviewed for the study, 15 policies across nine states were organized under the theme of Access. Approaches included parental consent, age verification, internet access and platform ban, Villodas and co-authors report. 
   
• Of the 16 enacted policies, eight policies across six states were organized under the theme of Exposure. These governed such factors as advertising, design practices and parental control.
   
• Of the 16 enacted policies, just one policy within one state—Florida—was organized under the theme of Media Literacy. The Sunshine State’s approach to this aspect involved education, which required public schools to provide their students with information on the social, emotional and physical effects that social media use has on minors, Villodas and colleagues found. Florida also required its Department of Education to make these instructions available online and notify parents of their availability.

Critical ‘person-in-environment’ context 

In their discussion, Villodas and co-authors comment that an interdisciplinary approach is critical for continuing to understand youth engagement with social media in a “person-in-environment” context. 

This approach “should prioritize youth voice in both research and policy,” the authors add. “Youth advisory boards and councils, as well as youth participatory research approaches, are growing strategies to bolster youth voice in the conversation on social media use and youth mental health.”

In coverage of the work by George Mason University’s news team, Villodas points out that most prior research on the topic at hand has zeroed in on social media’s direct effects on youth mental health. 

“We wanted to understand what state governments are actually doing in response, whether those approaches are supported by existing evidence, and where additional research is needed,” she says before emphasizing: 

‘The person-in-environment perspective is a fundamental approach in social work. It considers how broader forces, including public policy, can influence a young person’s experiences and mental health.’

The study is posted in full for free.