It’s been 4 months since Australia became the first country in the world to ban children under the age of 16 from social media. But new data suggests the conversation about how we use social media shouldn’t stop there.
For the first time, data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has captured not just how much Australians use social media, but how they interact with it, including whether it distracts them at work, whether they use it to escape problems, and whether they’ve tried and failed to cut down their usage.
Linking these patterns to other outcomes in the HILDA Survey reveals strong correlations between problematic use and poorer mental health, loneliness and, for some men, more traditional gender attitudes. And these connections aren’t just there for young people.
Measuring problematic social media use
To measure problematic social media use we combine six new HILDA questions on how people interact with social media into a single problematic social media use index, with scores ranging from 0 (not problematic) to 1 (very problematic).
Unsurprisingly, younger people report the most problematic use — under-25s score 51 per cent higher on average than over-25s. But this isn’t just a young people’s problem. Over-25s score lower on average, but there are far more of them – enough that they account for 65 per cent of the most problematic users (those with index scores above 0.5).
One caveat is that because the index relies on self-reporting, young people may simply be better at recognising problematic use. But given their higher index scores track with their heavier overall usage rates – 82 per cent of under-25s use social media daily compared to 55 per cent of over-25s – this suggests the differences are not just an artefact of reporting behaviour.
Problematic social media use and mental health
The real value of these new HILDA questions is in linking problematic use to other outcomes. We start with mental health.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, higher problematic use is associated with lower mental health scores. But the size of the relationship is large. Those in the top decile of problematic use score 19 per cent lower on average than those in the bottom decile. That’s roughly the gap between someone with average self-reported mental wellbeing and someone in the bottom 20 per cent.
Of course, correlation is not causation. Problematic use may be a symptom of poorer mental health rather than a driver of it. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that problematic social media use is improving the situation.
This relationship holds regardless of age. While young people generally report both lower mental health and more problematic use, the correlation between the two is similar across age groups.
The pattern is also similar across gender. Young women report poorer mental health and slightly higher problematic use than young men, but the relationship is strong for both.
Unsocial media
Previous e61 research has documented a decline in friendship connections since 2012, coinciding with the growth of social media platforms. So how does loneliness relate to problematic social media use?
We measure loneliness using responses to the statement ‘I often feel very lonely’, scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Interestingly, we find that a small amount of social media use – moving from the 1st to 2nd decile – is associated with a decrease in loneliness. But beyond that the relationship is clear: people with more problematic use report feeling lonelier.
What’s particularly interesting is that this relationship holds even after controlling for friendship. It doesn’t seem to matter how many friends someone has – if their social media use is more problematic, they report feeling more lonely.
Social media and the gender attitudes gap
Previous e61 research has documented an increasing divergence of gender norms – Gen Z men are far more likely to hold traditional gender beliefs than Gen Z women and older men. Does social media play a role?
We construct an index of beliefs in traditional gender norms, scored from 1 (equal gender roles) to 7 (very traditional roles). This includes responses to statements such as ‘It is better for everyone involved if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children’.
For men, more problematic social media use is associated with more traditional views. No such relationship holds for women.
This is driven almost entirely by men in the top 20 per cent of problematic users (the top two deciles), who score on average half a point higher than those in the bottom decile. This effect sounds small, but it is the equivalent of shifting from the average attitudes of a 20-year-old woman to those of a 55-year-old man.
Perhaps surprisingly, the relationship holds only for older men and not those under 25. Despite young men’s views becoming more traditional, there is little link between their problematic use and their gender attitudes. A possible explanation is that it is the content, rather than the usage patterns, which drive increasingly traditional beliefs in young men.
We’re all affected by social media
The social media ban was designed to protect young Australians from online harm. Discussion around the ban has naturally focused on access, and last month the eSafety Commissioner’s first compliance report found that a substantial proportion of children continue to use social media despite the prohibition.
But doom scrolling doesn’t stop at 16. As recent court battles have highlighted, these platforms are deliberately engineered to maximise our time on screen. While some regulation around addictive features may be possible, we cannot easily restrict social media use for adults. What we can do is confront how our own habits affect our wellbeing and attitudes, and whether we’re willing to do anything about it.
