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Social media hurts girls' mental health and education potential, says UNESCO
report | CBC News Loaded
News
SOCIAL MEDIA HURTS GIRLS' MENTAL HEALTH AND EDUCATION POTENTIAL, SAYS UNESCO
REPORT
Girls around the world tend to spend more time on social media than boys and
it's hurting their mental health, says a new report from the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
SOCIAL MEDIA USERS REPORTED MORE BODY-RELATED IMAGE CONCERNS THAN NON-USERS,
GLOBAL REPORT SAYS
Jessica Wong · CBC News · Posted: Apr 26, 2024 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: April
26
The latest edition of UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report, which
examines the intersection of education and technology specifically as it relates
to girls, noted social media as an area of concern. (Haven Daley/The Associated
Press)
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Girls around the world tend to spend more time on social media than boys and
it's hurting their mental health, says a new report from the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In the latest edition of the agency's Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report
released on Thursday, researchers examined the intersection of education and
technology as it relates to girls.
Based on UNESCO data and published research from academics around the world, it
broaches a range of topics, including female students' engagement with
technology, gender comparison of digital skills and attitudes toward science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
Social media was noted as an area of concern. Some findings include:
* Social media algorithms can magnify negative gender norms and practices, thus
impacting students' wellbeing.
* The wellbeing of girls, who tend to spend more time on social media, is under
more strain than boys.
* Social media users reported more body-related image concerns than non-users.
* The addictive design of some platforms can lead to excessive screen time and
distract students from academics and extracurricular activities, and may also
affect attention spans and learning habits.
WATCH | How too much time on social media can have negative effects for girls:
Social media harms girls’ mental health, report warns
8 months ago
Duration 2:00
Spending too much time on social media erodes girls’ mental health with negative
impacts on learning, warns a new UNESCO report that also found girls are more
susceptible than boys to negative feelings about appearance and body image.
'NEGATIVE IMPACTS' ON LEARNING
The report arrives at a time when lawsuits against social media giants and
updates to online harms legislation have contributed to more scrutiny into how
the digital world impacts young people.
Girls are more negatively affected by social media than boys, according to GEM
director Manos Antoninis. 'That also has impacts — negative impacts — on
learning and that is where we're really concerned.' (Sam Wordley/Shutterstock)
Girls are more negatively affected by social media than boys, for instance in
developing negative feelings and emotions over body image, according to Manos
Antoninis, the Paris-based director of UNESCO's ongoing GEM report.
"That also has impacts — negative impacts — on learning and that is where we're
really concerned."
In education circles, technology is generally viewed in a positive light, he
noted, because "of the potential it brings to improving the content, making so
many resources available at the tip of our fingers [and] engaging young people
with the new opportunities."
Feeling included in their classrooms is key to academic success, but if a
student feels singled out, ridiculed or bullied on increasingly ubiquitous
social media, "they disengage from their education and that is something that we
don't want to see."
Ontario parent Kelly Dynes stands in the bedroom of her 17-year-old holding
artwork created by her daughter. Dynes says social media was a factor that
exacerbated her teen's disordered eating, which derailed her schooling. (Yan
Theoreti/CBC)
YOUNG PEOPLE STRUGGLE PROCESS CONTENT, MUM SAYS
Whitby, Ont., parent Kelly Dynes' daughter should be graduating Grade 12 this
year, but hospital visits and treatment for anorexia have delayed the teen's
schooling. Dynes attributes the 17-year-old's disordered eating to "a perfect
storm" of different factors, but believes social media played a significant
role.
Though her daughter had been an A-student, Dynes said online content led her
teen down a damaging path where she began to constantly question herself,
thinking: "I'm not enough. I can't do it. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not fit
enough. I'm not smart enough."
* Too much time scrolling? Instagram now urging teens to 'take a break'
* Weighing the risks: Researcher looking at toxic health messages on TikTok
Just before the pandemic, the teen was a bright, high-achieving eighth grader
fascinated by biology, botany, the environment, painting and crafts. After
classes first moved online, Dynes saw her daughter develop an interest in
fitness and exercise videos, which morphed into searching out healthy eating
content, which then shifted to "how to cook to be fit" or "how to cook to be
thin."
Teens are exposed to a barrage of social media content 'and they really don't
have the ability to process it and understand what's good, what's bad, what's
real, [and] what's not real,' Dynes said. (Drew Angerer/Getty)
By September 2020, the teen had her first treatment for anorexia. She continues
to pursue treatment at a facility in the U.S., as she gets back on track with
her schooling virtually.
"Social media being unregulated, kids ... get sent this content and they really
don't have the ability to process it and understand what's good, what's bad,
what's real, [and] what's not real," Dynes said.
WATCH | How social media 'rabbit holes' can hurt developing teen minds:
How falling into social media 'rabbit holes' can hurt developing teen minds
8 months ago
Duration 2:59
Dr. Rachel Mitchell, a child and youth psychiatrist in Toronto, outlines how
teens can quickly get sucked into a rabbit hole of potentially damaging social
media content they're unable to cut themselves off from.
For some young people, interacting and communicating with others online is
valuable in filling the "social bucket" in their lives, said Dr. Rachel
Mitchell, a child and youth psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in
Toronto.
* Instagram fuels both body-image issues and social connections, teen girls say
Still, that UNESCO flagged social media as a concern sends an important message
about its potential influence on girls today, she added.
"It sucks you in so to speak, into what's called a rabbit hole. And if you're
not in a good place mentally, the ability to a) process what you're seeing, b)
regulate what you're seeing and c) cut yourself off, is extremely hard,"
Mitchell said.
"There's no parent eye around… and so you're really left, literally, to your own
devices to fend for yourself."
While teen magazines might have been blamed for fuelling negative body image
issues in the past, the problem is now more ubiquitous with social media, said
Toronto-based child and youth psychiatrist Rachel Mitchell. (Lucas
Jackson/Reuters)
INTENSIFYING LONG-STANDING PROBLEMS
In the past, teen and women's magazines were blamed for fuelling negative body
image concerns in girls, but the difference now is that online content is
unrelenting, Mitchell noted.
"You wouldn't always have a magazine in your back pocket to look at every spare
moment ... which is essentially what's happening [with smartphones]. So it's the
volume and the intensity of the information. The vulnerability really hasn't
changed," she said.
"That was already there in society and it's just magnified that much more."
* Whistleblower testifies Facebook chooses profit over safety, calls for
'congressional action'
* U.S. senators grill Facebook exec about Instagram's potential harm to teen
girls
Mitchell acknowledges that regulating social media is a complex discussion
involving a host of issues, viewpoints and stakeholders.
"We need to have conversations about social media in schools. We need to have
conversations about social media in our family lives. We need to have
conversations about how much social media we as individuals are going to allow
ourselves to use — and all those things apply to teenagers and younger children
as well," she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Wong
Senior Digital Writer
Based in Toronto, Jessica Wong covers Canadian education stories for CBC News.
She previously covered arts and entertainment news, both national and
international, and has been a digital journalist for CBC since 2001. You can
reach her at jessica.wong@cbc.ca.
With files from Deana Sumanac-Johnson and Nazima Walji
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC News
Corrections and clarifications|Submit a news tip|Report error
RELATED STORIES
* Analysis
Ont. school boards are trying to knock down the social media giants. Do their
cases stand a chance?
* Social media gets teens hooked while feeding aggression and impulsivity, and
researchers think they know why
* Some teachers are using TikTok to reach teens, but concern over app's effects
persists
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