Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence

Used in 2 entries

For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.

1. [1] Teen social media Risk

   Statistic

   The APA identifies social media as neither uniformly beneficial nor uniformly harmful, and notes that effects depend on the content, the adolescent's individual characteristics, and the amount of time spent; it provides no per-user probability of harm

   “"Science demonstrates that social media use, in and of itself, is not sufficient to be helpful or harmful to young people."”

   Calculation notes

   The APA health advisory is included as a second authoritative institutional statement. Like the Surgeon General's Advisory, it summarises the correlational literature without producing a probability figure. Its key contribution to this entry is the explicit statement that social media use "in and of itself" is insufficient to cause harm — effects depend on content type, individual vulnerability, and usage patterns. This supports the no_reliable_estimate framing: there is no single population-level probability that applies to "a teenager using social media."
   

   Source date: 2023-05-09 · Accessed: 2026-04-18

2. [2] Child social media account access Decision · inaction side

   Statistic

   APA recommends adult monitoring of social media in early adolescence (ages 10-14) and frames potential risks as greater in early than late adolescence, supporting delayed/paced access for younger teens

   “"In early adolescence (i.e., typically 10–14 years), adult monitoring (i.e., ongoing review, discussion, and coaching around social media content) is advised for most youths' social media use... In general, potential risks are likely to be greater in early adolescence—a period of greater biological, social, and psychological transitions, than in late adolescence and early adulthood."”

   Calculation notes

   American Psychological Association 2023 Health Advisory on Adolescent Social Media Use. This source does not supply a direct regret figure for parents who delayed access, but its professional framing (delay is developmentally appropriate) supports the inference that inaction regret in this domain is rare and that the proxy 10% figure is a conservative upper bound rather than an underestimate.
   

   Source date: 2023-05-01 · Accessed: 2026-06-30

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