Social media can be harmful for kids – so what can we do? 

U.S. teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours each day on social media, with 41% of teens with the highest social media usage rating their mental health as poor or very poor. In the UK, nearly 25% of children and young people use their phones in a way that is consistent with a behavioral addiction. In the European Union, 44% of young people feel “they are not in control of their social media and digital services consumption”. 

These numbers are concerning, but not surprising. The business model of social media companies is based on serving highly engaging – and often harmful – content to users to keep them continuously scrolling on their platforms.  

Their algorithms do not spare young people from this constant bombarding with addictive content. Even though most platforms require users to be at least 13 years old, age-checking measures are easy to bypass.  

Reasearch suggests that high social media usage has the potential to harm young people. Yet, social media companies and their executives are turning a blind eye to the mounting evidence showing that their products are hurting kids and teens.  

In this blog, we cover: 

• How children and teens are exposed to online harms 
• How AI is harming young people
• How the spread of extreme misogyny online is harming young people 
• How young people are falling prey to conspiracy theories 
• How online harms can have real-life consequences to young people 
• What social media platforms, AI platforms, and governments can do to protect kids online 

Keep reading to learn how young people are being exposed to online harms and what can be done to tackle this problem. 

Content warning: eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, sexual harassment, misogyny, and racist abuse. 

How children and teens are exposed to online harms

CCDH has studied the impacts that different platforms have on kids and teens. From YouTube and TikTok to Facebook and Instagram, all failed to protect young people from harms. 

CCDH simulated the experience of a U.S. based 13-year-old girl creating a new YouTube account and encountering an eating disorder video for the first time. In 100 tests, we analyzed the top ten recommendations on the platform’s “Up Next” panel after viewing just one harmful video. Of the 1,000 recommendations, 1 in 3 promoted harmful eating disorder content; 2 in 3 were related to eating disorders or weight loss; and 1 in 20 involved self-harm or suicide content. 

YouTube actively recommended eating disorder videos to teens, including content about extreme diets like “Anorexia Boot Camp,” thinspo, and meanspo. And worse, the platform was profiting from it by displaying ads for big brands. We repeated the experiment in the UK and in Europe, with similarly worrying results. 

In 2022, CCDH conducted a similar experiment on TikTok. Our “Deadly by Design” report showed that, within 39 seconds of a teenage girl creating an account, TikTok recommended videos about body image and mental health. Within 2.6 minutes, the platform served suicide content. And within 8 minutes, TikTok was pushing content related to eating disorders. 

It’s not only happening to young girls. In 2023, we identified videos of influencers promoting potentially deadly bodybuilding drugs to teenage boys on TikTok, with hashtags such as #teenfitness and #teenbodybuilding. TikTok is so opaque that it does not provide information on the number of views of users under 18, so it is impossible to say how many teens actually saw this content. 

Meta also has a track record of harming children. In 2023, we showed that minors were being harassed by adult users – including sexually explicit harassment, racist abuse and misogyny – on Meta’s flagship virtual reality social network, Horizon Worlds. Yet, Meta now allows kids as young as 10 to join their VR platform.

How AI is harming young people

Recent polling from Common Sense Media found that 72% of U.S. teens have used an “AI companion”, including chatbots. In the UK, Internet Matters found that ChatGPT remains the most popular AI chatbot among young users, with 43% of UK respondents aged 9-17 having used it before. 

Yet, CCDH’s research shows that ChatGPT is betraying vulnerable teens by giving them dangerous advice on suicide, self-harm, substance abuse, and eating disorders. We created three accounts registered as 13-year-olds and interacted with OpenAI’s platform: within two minutes, ChatGPT advised how to “safely” cut yourself; within 20 minutes, it created a dangerously restrictive diet plan; and within 40 minutes, it explained how to hide being drunk at school. 

Our report also shows that ChatGPT composed heartbreaking goodbye letters for one of the simulated teen accounts in our study, aimed to be sent for parents, siblings, and friends. 

How the spread of extreme misogyny online is harming young people

Netflix’s show “Adolescence” highlighted how extreme misogyny spread online by manosphere communities can radicalize young boys and fuel real-life violence against girls. It doesn’t happen only in fiction.  

CCDH analyzed the world’s leading incel forum in 2022 and revealed the promotion of extreme hatred, rape, and mass shootings. Our researchers found that forum members post about rape every 29 minutes. We also found self-identified minors discussing antisemitic conspiracies, a desire to perpetrate mass murders, and even how to evade scrutiny by law enforcement. 

CCDH found that the incel forum community idolized and defended Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured fourteen more in Isla Vista, California, in 2014. Before committing the crime and killing himself, Rodger posted a misogynistic manifesto about his hatred of women. Previously, he had identified himself as an incel. Rodger’s actions and misogynistic manifesto have influenced other deadly attacks, including ones perpetrated by teenagers. 

Social media platforms are not only failing to stop the spread of incel ideology, but they are also letting content by misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate reach kids and teens. In 2022, CCDH’s analysis identified more than 100 accounts that frequently promote content featuring Tate on TikTok, with a total of 250 million video views and 5.7 million followers.  

Videos posted by these accounts included clips of Tate saying that women should “take some degree of responsibility” to prevent rape and that “virgins are the only acceptable thing to marry”. Tate is facing criminal accusations in the UK over sexual misconduct and an investigation in Romania over human trafficking and money laundering. 

Teachers have been showing concerns that social media influencers like Tate are fueling an increase in misogyny and sexism in schools. In the UK, a poll showed that almost three in five teachers believe social media use has had a negative effect on behavior in schools.

Young people online are falling prey to conspiracy theories

Social media algorithms amplify misinformation and conspiracy theories because this is the kind of content that generates controversy, outrage, and engagement on their platforms. This spread comes at a price to young people’s perception of reality. 

CCDH’s polling showed that U.S. teens are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories the longer they spend on social media. Presented with conspiracy theories, 60% of 13 to 17 year-olds expressed agreement with at least four statements, including conspiracies about climate change, migrants, Jewish people, and vaccines.  

This number rose to 69% for teenagers who spend four or more hours a day on social media. Comparatively, 49% of adults agreed with at least four conspiracy statements. 

Meta’s decision to halt the proactive enforcement of some policies on harmful content, replace independent fact-checking with Community Notes, and drop policies on “immigration, gender identity and gender” have the dangerous potential of boosting the spread of hate and misinformation on Instagram, Facebook, and Thread.  

This means that, from now on, young people with accounts on these platforms will be able to see hateful and racist claims such as “immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of sh*t”, “black people are more violent than Whites”, and “Jews are flat out greedier than Christians.”

Online harms can have real-life consequences to young people

The U.S. Surgeon General stated in 2023 that “there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”  

Anna Mockel, a mental health advocate from Maryland, shared with us that YouTube helped perpetuate her experience with an eating disorder in her adolescence. Anna has since recovered. 

Kristin Bride’s and Ian Russell’s teenage kids, however, tragically took their own lives after being affected by online harms. Their unimaginable grief has made both dedicate their lives to advocating for stronger online safety legislation in the U.S. and in the UK, respectively. Read more about Kristin Bride’s and Ian Russell’s journeys. 

In 2024, families who have lost children to online harms attended a U.S. Senate hearing with social media companies’ CEOs. On this occasion, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was pressured into apologizing to parents for the harms his platforms are causing to young people.  

He promised to “continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.” Meta’s recent decision to dismantle key protections makes one question whether Zuckerberg’s words can be trusted.  

Parents have repeatedly told CCDH that they are extremely worried about the effects of social media usage on their kids. This is why we created a Parents Guide to help parents and caregivers navigate the internet safely with their children.  

Download your free Parents Guide here. 

What social media platforms, AI platforms, and governments can do to protect kids online

Online safety for kids and teens should be a priority for social media companies, AI companies, governments, and legislators worldwide. Yet, tech platforms keep dismantling their internal policies that could protect kids.   

Tech leaders should:  

• Institute safety by design, considering young people’s safety from the moment the platform is being designed 
• Strengthen and enforce policies against hate, abuse, and misinformation.  
• Stop amplifying and profiting from hate speech, online harms, and misinformation.  

Some governments have already advanced online safety legislation, including in the UK and in the European Union. 

In the UK, the online safety regulator, Ofcom, published its “Protecting Children from Online Harms” Codes of Practice in April 2025. CCDH advised on the rules by providing evidence from our research on online harms to kids. Ofcom must now enforce these rules to raise online safety standards.   

In the European Union, the Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms used by minors to give them extra protection, including assessing the risk of exposure to content that could harm young people’s physical or mental wellbeing. 

In the United States, while the conversation about reform is facing challenges federally, there have been some developments on the state level. However, these are more focused on banning kids from social media than addressing the root causes of online harms.  

In general, governments and lawmakers should:  

• Create and enforce regulations to hold social media platforms accountable and responsible for what is amplified by their platforms.   
• Implement the four principles of CCDH’s STAR Framework for social media regulation: Safety-by-design, Transparency, Accountability, and Responsibility.  

A safer internet for kids and teens is possible. It is on social media companies, governments, and lawmakers to start working together to build better online spaces for young people.  

By producing research and campaigning for regulation, CCDH is working towards a future where everyone can feel safe online. Sign up for our newsletter and get monthly updates about our work and how you can get involved.