Researchers speak of a risk spiral with self-reinforcer: the longer young people move in the social media, the more perfect the others they meet on the net appear and the more their own conscience stirs - not because the others are really more beautiful, but because the filters are getting better, the pictures more and more perfect and the number of likes more and more tempting. Does this social media logic throw young people out of mental balance, does it even make them ill? The question is becoming more and more urgent.
Joachim Müller-Jung
Editor in the arts section, responsible for the section "Nature and Science".
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Two out of three young people now have regular access to social media, and none of the popular platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook or WeChat are really doing anything substantial to minimize the psychological risks for the youngest. On the contrary, research in the UK recently showed that 42 percent of children who fall under the minimum user age of 13 are actually registered with their own account on one of the platforms. Nevertheless, the crucial question has still not been answered with certainty: Is the overconsumption of social media really linked to the mental health problems that are plunging more and more young people into a deep crisis, including serious illnesses?
50 studies in 17 countries
Two British health researchers from University College London have now investigated this question in a systematic analysis of the already published scientific studies in various countries. Her focus: eating disorders and body dysmorphism, i.e. misperceptions of one's own body. Out of well over a hundred studies they found on the effects of social media, 50 useful studies in 17 countries were filtered out. Her first, important finding: Across cultures, whether in Europe, the USA or Asia, the pathological disorders of eating behavior and one's own body perception are increasing among young people - virtually parallel to the enormous success of the social platform in the younger generations.
According to a study for the "Global Burden of Diseases" program, at least 2019.13 million people should already suffer from anorexia - anorexia - or bulimia - also one of the most common eating disorders - in 9. In addition, there are almost 42 million people of whom other eating disorders are known. However, since very few cases are actually recorded by health systems (an estimated four out of five remain clinically undetected), the London-based Global Health researchers expect a much larger - and above all increasing - prevalence.
A review of 94 studies in the USA, Europe and Asia has come to the conclusion that an estimated one in twelve women and one in fifty men will suffer from a clinically relevant eating disorder at some point in their lives. Among young women, anorexia nervosa is one of the most important causes of disability or serious illness - from the absence of menstruation, depression and anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders and phobias to bone loss, premature cardiovascular problems or severe fertility disorders. The most severe, persistent anorexia nervosa is fatal for half of those affected. But it's not just young women who are the first to be affected: eating disorders are also increasing among young men, not least athletes.
Once an hour on social media
At the same time, social platforms are reaching more and more young Internet surfers. Half of young people, a British study has shown, now check their social media accounts at least once an hour. But it is also clear that eating disorders or body dysmorphism almost never have only one cause. Alexandra Dane and Komal Bhatia, the two researchers from University College London, have identified two dozen factors for their review in "Plos Global Health" that could be considered as possible contributors to an eating disorder. These include biological factors such as one's own body mass index or puberty age and many psychological influences such as one's own self-confidence and some possible psychosocial factors, such as early trauma or social isolation.
So how should the influence of social pressure in virtual space be classified? Is he perhaps already dominant? The two British health researchers are cautious after evaluating the methodologically very different and often unsuitable studies: "Staying in social media across cultural boundaries is a plausible risk factor for the development of eating disorders," they write in their study. But nothing more.
A causal connection could not be established with this new evaluation of the psychological and psychiatric literature. In eleven studies, a statistical relationship between social media consumption and the development of unusual to disturbed eating behavior or extreme sports was documented. But this is not enough for the experts to establish a clear cause-effect relationship.
For the British "Science Media Center", other experts have underlined the cautious interpretation of the studies: "Even if it may be that social media have an effect, we still do not know how strong this effect really is," says Paul Jenkins from the University of Reading. For the two London researchers, however, the increasingly clear connection is already worrying, the plausible connection alone is "alarming" in view of the growing importance of social media in the everyday life of the most vulnerable population group. The search for the mechanisms urgently needs to be stepped up, because too little is still being invested in research: "The burden of disease caused by body misperception or eating disorders has been ignored as a global health problem for far too long."