Experts Offer Guidance on Child and Youth Social Media Addiction
By Paul R. Pace
Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 report using at least one social media platform, with more than one-third reporting they use it “almost constantly,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. U.S. teens spend an average of 3.5 hours per day on social media, the department says.
According to Pew Research, 45% of teens state they spend too much time on social media, and 48% of teens believe the platforms have a mostly negative effect on people their age.
“Kids are becoming increasingly addicted to screens, and that is by design. They are becoming addicted to social media platforms, says Madeline Basha, NASW Rhode Island Chapter board member-at-large and attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center.
The mental health aspect of social media is evident, as many children stay up at night using their phones and not receiving a full night’s rest. This can lead to anxiety and depression as well as comparing themselves to others, she said.
Basha shared these comments as a panelist for the NASW online event in August titled “What Social Workers Need to Know: Preventing Online Harms to Children and Youth.”
She and other panelists offered practical strategies to help social workers recognize risks, support youth and families, and advocate for safer online environments.
Screen time use among adolescents, particularly social media, can become compulsive and life-disrupting. Such use can correlate with mental health harms such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm and even suicide, said panelist Kris Perry, MSW, executive director of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development.
There also is evidence that heavy screen use can interfere with sleep health, physical activity, school work and social relationships, Perry noted.
“And now, AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots are emerging as an area of risk,” Perry said. “Early data shows areas of concern. For example, 73% of kids, (ages) 9 to17, use AI monthly and 24% use it daily.”
ChatGPT is the most common AI platform young people use.
“This rapid rate of adoption should be our first signal of concern because–though we don’t yet know what the specific risks will be or how severe they are–a large portion of young people are already being exposed to any related risks that we may later uncover,” Perry said.
Experts are concerned about AI and emotional attachment, Perry said, because these chatbots are emerging as frictionless social attachment that gives constant validation to the user. “It is starting to raise concerns with kids because they are choosing AI chatbots over real people.”
One survey found that nearly one-third of teens were found in conversation with AI chatbots, and that those conversations were more satisfying than conversations with humans, Perry explained, adding that conversations in real life are part of social and emotional development.
“If kids are choosing chatbots over people, they’re missing these important opportunities to learn skills that will help them later on,” Perry said. In the area of children and AI use, experts are seeing something called cognitive offloading or outsourcing where kids are relying on AI for help in decision-making and completing learning assignments.
“They are bypassing critical thinking and problem-solving milestones,” Perry said. “We have a lot to be concerned about with kids and their online lives. There is much work to do to help them navigate their digital life in a safe way.”
Skill Development
As a school social worker, panelist Rose Molina, LICSW, says she sees technology interrupting young people’s skill development.
“Youth are not able to carry out relationships with others,” she said. “(Youth) are disrupted easily. There’s no problem-solving when a problem arises. There is a lack of empathy development, kindness, and just being able to navigate problems amongst each other.”
She said locking phones away during the school day has resulted in students reporting anxiety, depression and an inability to be in the classroom for long periods of time. However, after about three months of locking students’ phones during class hours, school staff started to see an increase in engagement in the classroom, Molina said.
What responsibility do technology companies have in helping children and youth avoid these mental health challenges when using their products? asked panel moderator April Ferguson, LCSW-C, senior practice associate at NASW.
Basha said manufacturers have a certain duty of care that they should uphold. For social media companies, their service is a product.
“They put a product into the market before they adequately tested it,” Basha said. “They knew it was going to cause harm to kids by design.”
Perry said all companies have a duty to produce safe products. However, what is happening with social media companies is like other companies that produce addictive items, even if they know the product is harmful. The business model of these companies is based on profit and to serve their shareholders, Perry noted.
“They are doing things that benefit them and their shareholders versus children and families.”
Changes On The Horizon
There are changes on the policy front, as 41 states have passed laws for “bell-to-bell” phone bans in schools, Perry said.
In addition, the U.S Senate recently reported out of committee the Kids Online Safety Act (S. 174). The bill, reported by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Aug. 5, 2026, was ready for full Senate debate at press time. The act is a major bipartisan effort to regulate online platforms’ treatment of minors, but its fate depends on reconciliation with the U.S. House bill and passage by both chambers.
In a related development, it was announced on Aug. 26 that Meta reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms, according to a New York Times article.
Meta, the owner of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, agreed to the financial penalties for violating federal child privacy and states’ consumer protection laws, the Times reported. Meta also agreed to limit how long teenagers can spend on its platforms and to bans on features that stoke mental health issues, striking at the heart of the company’s business of engagement for advertising, the paper said.
Despite these changes, Basha acknowledged it is an uphill battle for parents and guardians to be educated on technology that can potentially harm their children.
“A parent can do everything they can to limit their child’s usage, but kids are smart, kids are resourceful … ,” Basha said, but the more parents are aware of the apps their kids are using, the better.
What Parents Can Do
How can parents monitor their children’s online activities while balancing safety and privacy?
“My biggest thing is approaching it with curiosity versus punitive or revoking,” said Molina. “I work with kids in K through 12 and I’ve had fifth-graders who don’t have phones (but) still have access to all of these apps because others have phones and they are very tactful in getting access to these things.”
Molina suggests asking the child what applications they are using out of curiosity, with questions like who are your favorite YouTube content creators, or tell me what that app does. Children want to know it is safe to share such information with their parents, Molina said.
“For young people, this is their real world,” Molina explained. “There is no separation between the digital world and the real world for them.”
“When we come to them trying to divide that, we’re dismissing and we’re saying we don’t understand your world and they’re going to pull back from sharing,” Molina said. “And we want them to share. We want them to come to adults when they’re exposed, or something is happening online that doesn’t seem right. We want them to know they can come to us.”