Social Media Use Tied to Higher Health Risk Behavior in Teens

Findings seen for two or more hours of social media use per day, especially for alcohol consumption

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Nov. 30, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Social media use is associated with adverse health risk behaviors in young people, according to a review published online Nov. 29 in The BMJ.

Amrit Kaur Purba, Ph.D., from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify studies examining the association between social media use and health risk behaviors in adolescents (10 to 19 years).

Based on 126 included studies (1.43 million adolescents), the researchers found that frequent social media use was associated with increased alcohol consumption (odds ratio [OR], 1.48), drug use (OR, 1.28), tobacco use (OR, 1.85), sexual risk behaviors (OR, 1.77), antisocial behavior (OR, 1.73), multiple risk behaviors (OR, 1.75), and gambling (OR, 2.84) compared with infrequent social media use. Associations were stronger for alcohol consumption for exposure to user-generated social media content (OR, 3.21) versus marketer-generated content (OR, 2.12). Compared with social media use of less than two hours a day, social media use of two hours or more was associated with increased odds of alcohol consumption (OR, 2.12). Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation certainty was low for alcohol use and very low for other health behavior outcomes.

“Exposure to content showing health risk behaviors has stronger evidence for adverse effects, particularly in relation to an unhealthy diet (which had the best quality evidence) and alcohol use,” the authors write.