SPS Children, Adolescents and Young Adults: Social Media Plays a Role in Young People’s Mental Health

SPS Updates

After the COVID pandemic, mental health issues among young people have dramatically increased, explains Craig A. Knippenberg, LCSW, MDiv.

“My home state of Colorado has some of the highest rates of youth depression in the country, which increased from 35 percent in 2019 to 40 percent in 2022, not including increased rates of youth anxiety (Wingerter, 2022),” he says.

There is an epidemic of youth fragility, but it’s not young people’s fault.

“Our modern world bombards youth with anxieties about climate change and 24/7 coverage of world conflicts—plus all the usual issues that youth have historically dealt with, such as socioeconomic oppression, racism, and inadequate environments,” he states in the latest Section Connection newsletter for the Children, Adolescents and Young Adults SPS.

“As I look back on my last 40 years of clinical and school-based social work, my biggest concerns are how social media (SM) and gun violence are terrorizing mental health,” says Knippenberg, a child and family social worker at Craig Knippenberg and Associates. He is also chair of the section.

SM designers take advantage of the brain’s limbic system by designing posts and reels that are desired by that unique user, he says. The reels and posts young people see are short and sweet to keep the user entertained and avoid any dips in dopamine, risking boredom. The algorithms select new and different reels based on what the user clicked on or paused on, he says.