Stanford University tested social media health warnings on about 1,000 teens and young adults. Warnings about depression, anxiety and mental health are particularly deterrent. Messages about social media addiction, perhaps the most obvious warnings, actually have little effect.
About a thousand teenagers and young adults participated in the study. When using social media, they see health warnings. This produced many surprising results.
Stanford University is testing 6 social media warnings
The study looked at various pop-up messages in six categories: social media addiction, negative self-image, disrupted sleep rhythms, depression, anxiety, overall impact on mental health and social media being unsafe for young people.
For example, a warning about sleep could read: “Warning: Using social media can cause sleep problems. It can be harmful to your health.” A message from another test read: “Warning: Social media is linked to serious damage to the mental health of children and young people.”
Suggestions that you may need to look away from your screen have also been tested, as some social media platforms themselves claim to provide alerts.
Warnings about mental health are most effective, “addiction” has almost no effect
Research shows warnings about mental health, depression and anxiety are the most effective. All of the health warnings work well except for the warning about addiction.
It’s unclear why warnings about mental health, depression and anxiety are so effective. On the other hand, researchers do have a theory. “These are the questions that draw people in. People might think: ‘Yeah, I’ve seen this happen to my friends or myself’; these are the questions that people think are important.”
Teens and 20-somethings alike took part in the study, and both groups reported responding to warnings in similar ways. Advice on taking a break from the screen was found to be the least effective.
Will young people really stop scrolling because of such a warning?
The question is whether young people actually stop scrolling when they receive such a warning. Survey participants simply indicated how frustrated they were with pop-ups. It’s another thing to actually put down the phone. It’s unclear how the findings will be followed up.
“For substances such as tobacco and alcohol, we find that well-designed warning labels lead to behavioral changes on average,” one researcher said. “But social media is a very different product to cigarettes, alcohol or sugary drinks, where you just put a warning on the product and it stays there. The legislation around social media is designed in such a way that these warnings are effectively pop-ups. We need to understand more about how this affects behaviour.”
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