Anna Li ’25, Mind Your Mind outreach director, studies her AP Statistics review packet in preparation for her assessment. Suddenly, a notification pops up on her phone, and after a few seconds she finds herself already drawn to scrolling through Instagram instead of studying for her upcoming test. She hurriedly returns to her work after just a few moments, wondering how her night might have turned out if she stayed on Instagram instead of refocusing.
As average screen time and social media usage surge in the 21st century, Li has found many of her daily habits changing: in-person meetings and hangouts have turned to FaceTime, and doom scrolling sessions on social media have become more commonplace. A study from Common Sense Media found that teen screen time grew from about five hours in 2019 to 7.5 hours in 2021.
For Li, working on her homework, often turns into an internal struggle to stay off her phone. She finds that sometimes even having social media apps at all can pose a risk to the amount of time she dedicates to schoolwork.
“Sometimes I would delete Instagram for a couple weeks if I really had to focus on any academic things, like AP tests,” Li said. “It did work because I did spend a lot of my free time going on Instagram and on reels. I think that a social media detox helps me focus on what I really need to focus on.”
Stevenson social studies teacher, N. Clayton Duba believes that another critical effect of being online so much includes less engagement in present surroundings. Being on the phone for a long period of time leads to the mind wandering and losing focus of what is in front of them in real life. Duba, who has led multiple student trips to Europe over his tenure at Stevenson, said that a lack of phones in his first few trips has made students’ experiences significantly more engaging.
“I noticed in the first few trips, when students went to Europe, they were more engaged with the present and meeting new people, ” Duba said, “Sometimes, they wouldn’t even call home every day…So they’d actually be disconnected from their life back home.”
Carolyn Lewis, an Aptakisic Junior High social worker, notes that many people, in the midst of the moment, may not realize how they lose attention to reality due to technology. Nevertheless, Lewis believes it is ultimately up to individuals to intentionally take control of how much they consume social media.
“I’m a 51 year old adult, and I can scroll through Tiktok for an hour and not realize where the time went, but I’ve already done all my responsibilities since I worked a whole day,” Lewis said. “For many kids who don’t really necessarily have the same level of planning and organizational skills, device usage can really take away from their learning.”
A survey by the nonprofit research organization Common Sense Media found that overall screen time use in tweens ages 8 to 12 increased by 17 percent from around four and a half in 2019 to five and a half hours in 2021. As a social worker for middle schoolers, Lewis is concerned about the potential risks of being exposed to so much social media at a young age.
“The later you start, the less likely you are to have an addiction with drugs or alcohol, and I wonder if social media is kind of the same,” Lewis said. “For a junior high age kid, you can tell them, ‘don’t do this. You should do this,’ and they’re like, ‘whatever’, because the brain isn’t developed yet in such a way that it can think about consequences and that it can process like the future. But later on in high school, there is more of an ability to have self control and make more of a distinction between what’s realistic and what’s unrealistic, because you’re just more aware of the world at that point.”
Lewis adds that the influence of social media over younger adolescents may be exacerbated by the growth of social media content specifically catered towards younger audiences. She cites the advertisements of tobacco companies that are marketed in flavors to appeal to kids. In order to curb the rash judgment and decision-making that can result from social media influences, Lewis believes adults and companies should be held responsible in restricting access to certain content for younger people.
“In our family, my kids were not allowed to get whatever app they wanted until they were at the minimum age that the app said,” Lewis said. “Part of the job as a parent or a guardian is to monitor because we know more than kids about what kinds of things could be dangerous and what kinds of things could be that productive for them. That’s where the families have to kind of step in and set those boundaries.”
Although the use of technology has created bad habits for some, Lewis finds that usage can be beneficial for those who may not be able to form connections or friendships with people as easily as others. Lewis observes through her social work with neuro diverse individuals that being able to practice social skills virtually can foster a sense of belonging for those people.
“The neuro diverse students I work with have been able to build these foundations of friendship that they haven’t been able to make face to face with people,” Lewis said. “The social skills that get built through these virtual platforms can also be transferred back into a real life situation in school, because that person had the ability to practice that in a virtual setting and now has more confidence and comfort.”
Even though online communication may aid some students, the sheer bulk of usage can still pose an issue. Particularly in personal image, Pew Research Center has found that almost half of all teen social media users feel pressure to only post content that makes them look good to others. According to Lewis, this restrictive behavior might skew teens’ perceptions of reality and themselves.
“Your identity is being built based on these unrealistic views of everyone’s perfection,” Lewis said. “So, at a time when youth are really much more concerned about their identity and how people view them, I think social media could have a real, harmful impact.”
Lewis speculates that even adults may be swayed by the unrealistic content on social media. Li believes that for all people, an inability to identify the false portrayals of perfection depicted in posts on Instagram and short form content leads to insecure and unhealthy mindsets.
“Seeing all of the fake things on Instagram, people may feel like they have to change themselves to fit the standards,” Li said. “But most of the time there’s editing involved and what you see on social media isn’t what’s true. It’s not realistic to actually achieve.”
Lewis believes that idealistic expectations social media imposes is not only something people just strive for, but also something that can result in cyberbullying for those who don’t fit into that image. A 2023 study from cyberbullying.org revealed that nearly 55 percent of teens reported being cyberbullied in their lifetime, which is a higher rate than ever reported by the organization in 16 years of research. This trend is something noted by students like Li and professionals alike as the issue grows larger.
“Cyber bullying is just a huge thing, and that is definitely something that I would say is one of the more predominant changes in school that we see,” Lewis said.
However, Lewis has noticed that problems relating to cyber bullying are not isolated to school grounds. Multiple states, including Illinois, have laws that require schools to address cyberbullying by students even if it takes place off school property or after school hours. However, even with these regulations, Lewis believes that more subtle instances of cyberbullying in the form of exclusion and peer pressure might slip under the radar.
“One of my kids was in fifth grade already and wanted to play Fortnite,” Lewis said. “The reality is, he didn’t even want to play the game for the sake of what the game was, but because that’s what his friends were doing together, and he wasn’t part of that.”
Aside from the ability for social media to distort personal image and behavior, Duba warns of the consequences of social media content on personal opinion. He finds that individual choice may unintentionally make individuals ignorant of the multitude of perspectives addressed on social media, citing behaviors such as confirmation bias.
“With the internet and phones, we can find the media sources that we like, that reaffirm us, that tell us whatever we want is good,” Duba said. “And then we can find people online who disagree, and we can demonize them and rail against them and not have a meaningful interaction.”
Beyond the implications of social media algorithms influenced by individual behavior, Duba also believes the issue of content that individuals see on social media originates from the institutions themself. Georgetown Law Review says that many companies including Facebook utilize algorithms that track the users’ behaviors to feed the most interesting content for increased engagement, leading to phenomenon like “algorithm cruelty”, in which unintended harmful messages may be promoted by media algorithms.
“Technology is not being driven by those with our best interests in mind,” Duba said. “It is being driven by people who are making billions of dollars off technology that intentionally manipulates our feelings.”
Li adds that the algorithm of certain social media apps polarizes individuals by promoting controversial topics. By avoiding the more extreme sides of media, Li is able to prevent herself from the potential impacts of giving into the coercion of certain posts.
“There will be videos that are off putting, trying to get out this message of hating someone or promoting something that might be controversial,” Li said. “I tend to stick to videos or posts where the account is just promoting what they like, and they’re not trying to force anyone into believing anything or changing anything about themselves.”
As outreach director of Mind your Mind, a mental health and student wellness club, Li has taken steps to encourage this healthier behavior during club meetings. She encourages everyone to keep an open mind about the impacts of social media, acknowledging that social media itself is not fundamentally harmful to students.
“We’ve had discussions before, and I think it’s mostly just to set up limits for yourself to make sure that you’re not getting consumed by everything you see online,” Li said. “And for people to just realize that they can continue to use social media, because it’s not inherently bad. It’s just most important for people to realize that not everything is real on social media. It’s all for entertainment.”