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Since The Anxious Generation was published in 2024, both the scientific evidence and the public response have shifted significantly. What was once largely a debate over whether social media harms young people has increasingly become a discussion about how governments, schools, parents and technology companies should respond.
One of the most significant developments came in the 2026 World Happiness Report, which included a chapter by Jonathan Haidt and Zachary Rausch titled “Social Media is Harming Young People at a Scale Large Enough to Cause Changes at the Population Level.” Reviewing hundreds of studies published over the past decade, the authors argue that the evidence has now reached a tipping point.
Their conclusion is unequivocal: there is now “overwhelming evidence of severe and widespread direct harms” from social media use among children and adolescents. Rather than affecting only vulnerable individuals, social media is influencing the mental health and development of entire populations of young people.
The report identifies several features of modern social media platforms that contribute to these harms, including addictive platform design, leading to reduced face-to-face interaction, increased social comparison, disrupted sleep, and exposure to harmful or extreme content. Among its key findings:
- Population-level effects: Social media is now influencing mental health outcomes across youth populations, not just among vulnerable individuals.
- Heavy use is harmful: Young people spending three to five hours or more each day on social media face substantially higher risks of anxiety, depression, self-harm and other psychological difficulties.
- Girls appear especially vulnerable: Online social comparison, body image pressures and relationship-based stress disproportionately affect adolescent girls.
- Evidence of causality is increasing: Experimental studies show that reducing social media use improves well-being, suggesting these effects are at least partly causal.
- Public health significance: The scale, consistency and global nature of the evidence suggest social media should now be viewed as a population-level public health concern.
In short, social media has become far more than a communication tool. For many young people, it has become a primary social environment actively shaping their development and emotional well-being.
These findings stand in stark contrast to the position taken by Meta during ongoing legal proceedings in the United States. In February 2026, CEO Mark Zuckerberg maintained his claim from his 2024 testimony that “Mental health is a complex issue, and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes.” The lawsuits allege that Meta knowingly designed products to maximise engagement among young users while failing to adequately address the risks to their wellbeing.
Haidt and Rausch’s report draws on internal company documents suggesting that employees within several major platforms recognized concerns about the addictive nature of their products and the harms they could cause:
The product in itself has baked into it compulsive use. —TikTok executive.
Internal documents highlight the fact that minor users are “particularly sensitive to reinforcement in the form of social award,” have “minimal ability to self-regulate effectively,” and “do not have executive function to control their screen time.” —TikTok internal document.
An undated internal Snap presentation acknowledged that Snap had a “problem” with drugs and guns; that dealers are using Snapchat’s “sharing mechanisms” “to reach teens on Snapchat they would never encounter in real life” and that “some teens have even died as result of buying drugs that they found through Snapchat.” —Snap internal presentation.
It seems clear from what’s presented here that some of our users are addicted to our products. And I worry that driving sessions incentivizes us to make our product more addictive, without providing much more value. —a senior data scientist at Meta.
Together, these findings reinforce Haidt’s central argument that the “Great Rewiring” of childhood has fundamentally altered the developmental environment in which today’s children are growing up.
Haidt and Rausch conclude their report with a stark warning:
Countries around the world ran a giant uncontrolled experiment on their own children in the 2010s by giving them smartphones and social media accounts. The available evidence suggests that the experiment has harmed them. It is time to call it off.
Governments appear to be reaching the same conclusion. Australia has legislated a minimum age of 16 for most social media platforms, while several other countries—including the UK, France, Greece and Denmark—are set to follow with some form of age-restricted access. Although approaches differ, it is clear that many governments now view excessive social media use by children as a public health issue rather than simply a matter of personal responsibility.
The debate is no longer whether social media is reshaping childhood, but what we should do to protect young people from its harms.
▶ Video
Are Smartphones Ruining childhood?
Jonathan Haidt, TED Talks Daily Podcast
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's latest book, The Anxious Generation, is shaping cultural conversations and sparking fierce debates about the role of smartphones in society. In this timely conversation, he investigates how a smartphone-based childhood, amplified by overprotective parenting, is driving the mental health crisis among young people. He also explores the push for phone bans in schools and the concrete steps we can take to improve the mental health of young people around the world.
▶ Video
Speaking of Psychology: How Social Media Affects Teens’ Mental Health
Linda Charmaraman, PhD (2021)
The vast majority of US teens have access to a smartphone and at least one social media account, and recent headlines seem to confirm parents’ worst fears about the effects of all that time spent online. But psychologists’ research suggests that there are nuanced answers to the question of how social media affects teens’ mental health and well-being.
The Anxious Generation Website
Jonathan Haidt
Visit the website for more information.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Publishing Group, 2024.
Haidt, Jonathan, and Zachary Rausch. “Social Media is Harming Young People at a Scale Large Enough to Cause Changes at the Population Level.” January 13, 2026. Available at Social Science Research Network (SSRN): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6069268
Helliwell, J. F., R. Layard, J. D. Sachs, J. E. De Neve, L. B. Aknin, and S. Wang (Eds.). World Happiness Report 2026. University of Oxford: Wellbeing Research Centre. Available at https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2026/.
The New Yorker. “Jonathan Haidt on How to Save Kids from Social Media | The New Yorker Radio Hour.” The New Yorker Radio Hour Podcast, hosted by David Remnick. YouTube video, 25:07. March 13, 2026.
Zuckerberg, Mark. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.” January 31, 2024. U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2024-01-31_-_testimony_-_zuckerberg.pdf
