Social media is harmful for children - but the way they use it matters, study shows

A major review of more than 9 million young people suggests the risks of digital media depend on how, why and what children are using it for

Detail of teenagers watching with their mobile phones

Getty/Kentaroo Tryman

Published: October 6, 2026 at 11:08 AM

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Digital media is now woven into family life, from toddlers watching educational programmes to teenagers chatting with friends online. But a major review of research into young people’s digital habits suggests the question is not simply how much time children spend looking at screens, but what they are doing online and how they are using it.

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The review, published in eClinicalMedicine, brought together 121 systematic reviews covering around 2,790 individual studies and more than 9 million children, teenagers and young adults aged up to 24.

Its findings paint a much more complicated picture than the idea that all screen time is bad. While more than three-quarters of reported exposure-outcome associations were adverse, the researchers also found evidence of potential benefits, including from educational content, active gaming and some forms of social digital engagement.

It’s how children use digital media that matters

The review found that the health implications of digital media varied according to the amount, content, context and pattern of use, as well as the child’s developmental stage.

For younger children, overall screen time was associated with poorer socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes and shorter sleep. But that was not the whole story. Educational screen content was associated with better language development, while watching alongside a caregiver was associated with improved language and cognitive outcomes.

The type of content also appeared to matter. Fast-paced or fantastical content was associated with poorer cognitive and academic outcomes.

For teenagers and young adults, problematic digital media use, rather than simply screen time, was associated with a range of poorer outcomes, including mental health problems, sleep difficulties, reduced physical activity and self-harm or suicidal ideation.

This is not a story about a uniformly harmful technology... digital media remains a real channel for education, connection and health promotion.

Dr Marco Bardus, assistant professor of public health

Problematic use refers to patterns such as impaired control, preoccupation or continuing to use digital media despite negative consequences. It is not the same thing as simply spending a certain number of hours online.

Dr Marco Bardus, assistant professor of public health at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study, said the review makes an important contribution by moving beyond simplistic debates about screen time.

“This is not a story about a uniformly harmful technology, as the same umbrella review finds educational content, active gaming and moderate social use associated with better development and wellbeing, and digital media remains a real channel for education, connection and health promotion.”

There can be benefits to being online

The researchers found some positive associations among adolescents, too.

Active video games were associated with increased physical activity, while body-positive content was associated with better wellbeing. Among older adolescents and young adults, moderate and socially oriented digital engagement was associated with better wellbeing and perceived social support.

Although some types of digital media use may be harmful, others can support connection, wellbeing or physical activity.

Dr Lizzy Winstone, researcher of applied health

Dr Lizzy Winstone, senior research associate in applied health research at the University of Bristol Centre for Public Health, who was not involved in the study, also cautioned against treating all digital media use as harmful.

“Although some types of digital media use may be harmful, others can support connection, wellbeing or physical activity. Consider, for example, the proliferation of online exercise classes, where screen time is actually facilitating physical activity.”

She said this reinforces the need to focus less on overall screen time and more on what young people are experiencing online, including the influence of platform design and commercial practices.

Experts warn against treating the findings as proof that screens cause harm

There is an important caveat to the research. Most of the evidence included in the review was observational, meaning it can identify associations but cannot establish that digital media use caused a particular health outcome.

Dr Teodora Gliga, professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of East Anglia, who was also not involved in the study, said the review finds “consistent but small associations” between digital media use and various mental and physical health outcomes, but stressed that the evidence does not show that screen time causes conditions such as depression, autism or ADHD.

“The authors themselves caution against this interpretation since it remains possible that pre-existing characteristics like autistic traits or struggling to fall asleep may lead to longer screen use.”

Plus, the review notes that 71% of the 121 reviews were rated as low or critically low quality, so we shouldn't extrapolate all the findings out to population-level.

So what does this mean for parents?

The findings do not provide a simple answer for how many hours children should spend online. Instead, they suggest parents may benefit from thinking about the quality and purpose of screen use alongside the amount of time spent on devices.

For younger children, that could mean prioritising age-appropriate educational content and watching together where possible. For teenagers, it may be more useful to look out for signs of problematic use, such as losing control over digital habits or continuing to use a platform despite it affecting sleep, relationships or day-to-day life.

It is also worth considering what screen use is replacing. The review highlights the importance of sleep, physical activity, schoolwork and face-to-face social interaction, all of which can be displaced by digital media.

The wider message is that not all screen time is equal. A child using a tablet to practise reading with a parent, a teenager playing an active video game and a young person scrolling social media late into the night are all having very different digital experiences.

As Dr Bardus puts it, the biggest challenge may be understanding exactly what is happening online, rather than simply counting the minutes.

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“The most valuable contribution here is diagnosing why we still don’t know the answer: the data that would settle it sit inside the companies.”

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