Well-being

4. Well-being

The impacts of digital technologies on young people’s well-being and safety have been at the forefront of both policy and public discourse and underpin the Online Safety Act. While young people have always been at risk of harms to their well-being, digital technologies have shifted how they are exposed to and experience harms.

Harms like bullying now have an online component, while some harms like targeted mis/disinformation have emerged as technologies have developed. In this context, young people are navigating risks that appear online in different ways from those faced by previous generations, as well as risks arising from the design of digital services. To begin to unpack some of these risks and their impacts on young people’s well-being, we briefly look at available survey data on well-being and exposure to online harms.

We recognise that this topic requires more depth than this data commentary will allow, and as such, we have only focused on some areas of well-being and harms. Specifically, we look at data on the impacts of social media on well-being and exposures to online harms.

Social media and well-being

For the purposes of this data commentary, we consider mental health as a concept referring to emotional, psychological and social well-being, which affects the way individuals think, act and feel. Existing research highlights that this well-being affects how people cope with stressors, realise their personal abilities, learn and work, and contribute to their communities[ref]World Health Organization (2022). Mental Health. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response. [/ref].

In this section, we explore the impacts of social media on well-being, focusing on general mental health rather than clinical disorders. Social media platforms in particular have been discussed extensively in relation to their impacts on young people’s well-being as they can expose young people to a range of harms, including nasty comments from others, suicide, self-harm and eating disorder content, violent images and videos, sexually explicit content, pornography and misogynistic influencers[ref]Ofcom (2025). New Rules for a Safer Generation of Children Online. Available from: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/new-rules-for-a-safer-generation-of-children-online. [/ref].

Young people do report social media – in a general sense – affecting how they feel or act. For example, two-fifths (38%) of people aged 8–24 agree with the statement: ‘social media has a negative impact on people like me’[ref]Nominet Social Impact (2023). Digital Youth Index: Report 2023. Available from: https://digitalyouthindex.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Digital-Youth-Index-2023-report.pdf. [/ref]. In addition, nearly half (46%) of 14–24-year-olds feel that social media has reduced their ability to concentrate on other things, speaking to societal concerns around digital technologies and cognition[ref]Common Sense Media, and Hopelab. (2024). A Double-Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think about the Multifaceted Relationship between Social Media and Mental Health. Available from: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2024-double-edged-sword-hopelab-report_final-release-for-web-v2.pdf. [/ref]^,[ref]Firth, J., et al. (2019). The ‘Online Brain’: How the Internet May Be Changing Our Cognition. World Psychiatry 18. 119–29. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20617. [/ref]. Experiences of marginalisation may exacerbate the negative impacts of social media on well-being, with those from LGBTQ+ backgrounds and disabled young people reporting more commonly that social media has a negative impact on people like them[ref]Nominet Social Impact (2023). Digital Youth Index: Report 2023. Available from: https://digitalyouthindex.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Digital-Youth-Index-2023-report.pdf. [/ref]. Poor mental health may also interact with how people are impacted by social media, particularly in relation to social comparisons with others. For instance, 64% of 14–24-year-olds with depressive symptoms feel that other people’s lives are better than their own, compared to 38% with no depressive symptoms[ref]Common Sense Media, and Hopelab. (2024). A Double-Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think about the Multifaceted Relationship between Social Media and Mental Health. Available from: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2024-double-edged-sword-hopelab-report_final-release-for-web-v2.pdf. [/ref].

At the same time, young people report positive impacts of social media on social connection and self-expression. In a 2022 McKinsey Health Institute survey of over 42,000 participants from 26 countries (predominantly European nations), over half (57%) of 13–24-year-olds say social media has a mostly positive impact on their self-expression, with 56% feeling the same for social connectivity[ref]Coe, E., Enomoto, K., and McKinsey Health Institute (2023). Social Media and Mental Health: The Impact on Gen Z. Available from: https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/gen-z-mental-health-the-impact-of-tech-and-social-media. [/ref]. Similarly, in a more recent UK-based survey from Ofcom, when answering from their personal experience, over half (59%) of 16–24-year-olds feel that the benefits of using social media apps or websites outweigh the risks, compared to 15% who feel the risks outweigh the benefits and 26% who are unsure[ref]Ofcom (2024). Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes 2024: Interactive Report. Available from: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/media-habits-adults/adults-media-use-and-attitudes-2024-interactive-report. [/ref].

These mixed experiences may reflect ‘an internet of extremes’[ref]Internet Matters (2025). Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital World: Year 4 Annual Index Report. Available from: https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2025/. [/ref]. This is where the internet is becoming simultaneously more essential and more distressing for young people. For instance, there is a general sense that the internet is important for social connection (for example, 56% of young people feel the internet is important for meeting good friends), and learning new things, but many still have negative experiences online or witness unpleasant behaviours[ref]Internet Matters (2025). Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital World: Year 4 Annual Index Report. Available from: https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2025/. [/ref].

Important to note is that evidence to support a causal link between social media use and poor mental health for young people aged 14–24 today is fragmented, facing strong methodological challenges. A meta-analysis of 46 studies of youth social media use and mental health found that the evidence to date does not support claims of harmful effects of social media use on mental health issues[ref]Ferguson, C.J., et al. (2025). There Is No Evidence That Time Spent on Social Media Is Correlated with Adolescent Mental Health Problems: Findings from a Meta-Analysis. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 56. 73–83. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1037/pro0000589. [/ref]. This was true for both boys and girls across correlational and longitudinal studies.

The authors of this meta-analysis highlight that research in this domain suffers from overinterpretation of statistically significant, but very weak effects; small effect sizes in large samples; and the reliability of self-reported behaviours. Similarly, longitudinal analysis of Understanding Society data from 10–15-year-olds finds that there is not a causal link between time spent on social media and later mental health problems, with factors such as self-esteem potentially explaining the relationship observed between the two[ref]Plackett, R., Sheringham, J., and Dykxhoorn, J. (2023). The Longitudinal Impact of Social Media Use on UK Adolescents’ Mental Health: Longitudinal Observational Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research 25. e43213. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2196/43213. [/ref]. Other studies have similar results, finding that factors like social support can mitigate against negative outcomes on well-being from social media[ref]Fruehwirth, J.C., Weng, A.X., and Perreira, K.M. (2024). The Effect of Social Media Use on Mental Health of College Students during the Pandemic. Health Economics 33. 2229–52. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4871. [/ref].

A recent review from the Youth Futures Foundation references five randomised controlled trials in this field, which tested whether reduction or abstinence from social media improved symptoms of anxiety or depression, four of which detected improvements. However, as the authors note, small-to-medium sample sizes, short follow-up periods, and potential placebo effects may limit the validity of these findings[ref]Youth Futures Foundation, Understanding Drivers of Recent Trends in Young People’s Mental Health (2025), https://youthfuturesfoundation.org/publication/report-understanding-drivers-of-recent-trends-in-young-peoples-mental-health/. [/ref].

The lack of data to support a strong causal relationship may seem at odds with cross-sectional evidence that does find associations between mental health and social media use. We do not suggest that a lack of causal evidence means that there is no evidence of a relationship. Instead, it highlights the importance of taking a holistic approach when examining mental health and digital technologies, with individual differences in existing well-being, experiences of marginalisation, and other factors also vital to consider. At the same time, while a causal relationship cannot currently be established from the quantitative data, this does not mean that social media does not have an impact on mental health. It may be the case that the experiences of particular groups or individuals provide different insights from a perspective based on averages discussed above.

Research from Dr Amy Orben and colleagues[ref]University of Cambridge Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (2025) Dr Orben leads governmental project to understand impact of smartphones and social media on young people. Available from: https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/01/dr-orben-leads-governmental-project-to-understand-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-young-people/. [/ref], commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, may offer additional insight here. We look forward to their findings on young people’s smartphone and social media use, and welcome their recognition of rapid behavioural changes and consideration of how the experiences of vulnerable young people can be captured in research.

Exposure to online harms

As discussed earlier, digital technologies can expose young people to a range of potentially harmful content that can affect their well-being and feelings of safety. Here we explore exposure to, and encounters with, untrue or violent content, sexually explicit content, and cyberbullying. We think about how this content affects the ways young people engage with digital technologies. Multiple studies find that around three-quarters (75–77%) of young people under the age of 18 report feeling safe online[ref]Children’s Commissioner (2024). ‘I’ve Seen Horrible Things’: Children’s Experiences of the Online World. Available from: https://assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2024/10/Ive-seen-horrible-things-Online-Safety-Report-October-2024.pdf. [/ref]^,[ref]Internet Matters (2025). Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital World: Year 4 Annual Index Report. Available from: https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2025/. [/ref].

Yet even with this general feeling of safety, a substantial proportion of young people have encountered content online that has the potential to cause, or is likely to cause, harm – for example, content that may be untrue (41% of 9–16-year-olds report this) or violent (22% of 9–16-year-olds report this)[ref]Internet Matters (2025). Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital World: Year 4 Annual Index Report. Available from: https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2025/. [/ref].

Exposures to this type of content may be even higher for those aged 18–24 when compared with older participants. Analysis of the 2025 How do people feel about AI? survey shows that 81% of 18–24-year-olds in the UK have encountered false or misleading information online, and 65% have seen content that promotes violence, abuse or hate[ref]Modhvadia, R., et al. (2025). How Do People Feel about AI? Wave 2 (2025). Ada Lovelace Institute, The Alan Turing Institute. Available from: https://attitudestoai.uk/about-the-survey/citation-and-pdf. [/ref]. These encounters appear more pronounced for young people, with fewer people over the age of 25 reporting seeing harmful content online (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Encounters with potentially AI-generated harms of 18–24-year-olds and 25+-year-olds[ref]Modhvadia, R., et al. (2025). How Do People Feel about AI? Wave 2 (2025). Ada Lovelace Institute, The Alan Turing Institute. Available from: https://attitudestoai.uk/about-the-survey/citation-and-pdf. [/ref]

18–24-year-olds

25+-year-olds

See full figure description here.

Important to note is that young people are not naïve to the harms of online spaces. Young people often report taking active measures to manage their online behaviours to avoid harms, usually to avoid overexposure to digital technologies; this can include setting time limits on specific applications and taking breaks from using devices[ref]VoiceBox, ‘Digital Wellbeing: A Balancing Act’, 2023, https://voicebox.site/sites/default/files/2023-01/digital-wellbeing-report.pdf. [/ref]. Enacting strategies to avoid unpleasant content online appears to be more common among older young people, with 81% of 18–22-year-olds saying they use strategies to avoid seeing things they do not like online compared to 68% of 14–17-year-olds[ref]Common Sense Media, and Hopelab. (2024). A Double-Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think about the Multifaceted Relationship between Social Media and Mental Health. Available from: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2024-double-edged-sword-hopelab-report_final-release-for-web-v2.pdf. [/ref]. In the absence of more structural safeguards for young people from harmful content, these behaviours point to ways in which young people try to take control of their digital experiences and how older people in our cohort of interest may be more comfortable or confident in doing so than younger people. At the time of writing, the Online Safety Act has been rolled out, but it will take time to see if the Act’s implementation can provide the structural safeguards those under 18 need and want.

Sexually explicit content

Against this backdrop of feeling generally safe online, but still being exposed to harmful content, there are more specific challenges around young people and sexually explicit content and behaviours. This sits within a broader narrative around the age and developmental appropriateness of content young people encounter online and how exposure to this content might affect an individual’s well-being.

Over half of 11–17-year-olds (51% of 11–13s, 66% of 14–15s, 79% of 16–17s) report having seen pornography at some point, and for two-thirds of 11–13-year-olds (63%), their first exposure to pornography has been unintentional[ref]Revealing Reality, and BBFC (2020). Young People, Pornography & Age-Verification. Available from: https://revealingreality.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BBFC-Young-people-and-pornography-Final-report-2401.pdf. [/ref]. Unintentional routes described by this cohort included Google searches using search terms without fully understanding their meaning, receiving links to pornographic sites from friends without knowing what the content would include, adverts or pop-ups on streaming or gaming websites, and being shown videos on a friend’s phone. That this exposure is often unintentional rather than self-directed raises questions around individual autonomy and agency when navigating online spaces, as well as protections from age-inappropriate content. However, these findings need to be interpreted cautiously as self-reports around exposure to sexually explicit content may be subject to biases in responses, with young people potentially feeling more comfortable declaring exposure as accidental rather than intentional.

Gendered inequalities also appear in relation to experiences of sexually explicit content online. In a 2021 survey of over five thousand 14–18-year-olds carried out across 64 schools and colleges in the UK, more girls than boys report having received a nude photo that they did not want (16% of girls, compared to 4% of boys)[ref]Revealing Reality (2022). Not Just Flirting. Available from: https://revealingreality.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Revealing-Reality_Not-Just-Flirting.pdf. [/ref]. In this same survey, girls are also more likely than boys to report having nude or nearly nude photos of themselves that they have shared to be shared with other people without their consent (24% of girls, compared to 9% of boys). The use of a school-based survey in this study carries important methodological strengths, specifically in that responses may be less vulnerable to biases in self-reporting that may arise if a survey were carried out at home under the supervision of a parent or carer.

Gendered inequalities are also emerging around sexually explicit deepfakes – audiovisual material generated by AI to misrepresent a person or a thing. For instance, qualitative insights reveal a higher prevalence of worry among girls than boys about this technological capability, often making a link between this type of online content and offline threats to their safety[ref]Children’s Commissioner (2025). ‘One Day This Could Happen to Me’ – Children, Nudification Tools and Sexually Explicit Deepfakes. Available from: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/children-nudification-tools-and-sexually-explicit-deepfakes/. [/ref].

Cyberbullying

Another unique harm of digital technologies includes cyberbullying. While there is no universal definition of cyberbullying, practitioners have described it as negative behaviour that causes harm or upset to someone else, conducted through a screen or device with repetition and intentionality[ref]Sharrock, S., et al. (2024). Key Attributes and Experiences of Cyberbullying among Children in the UK. National Centre for Social Research. [/ref]. This form of bullying presents different challenges when compared with offline bullying, particularly in its ability to continue around the clock and affect young people in both public and private spaces[ref]The Children’s Society, and Young Minds (2018). Safety Net: Cyberbullying’s Impact on Young People’s Mental Health. Available from: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/media/dp0mu4l5/pcr144b_social_media_cyberbullying_inquiry_full_report.pdf. [/ref]. Recently, cyberbullying emerged as a key concern among children under the age of 18[ref]Children’s Commissioner (2024). ‘I’ve Seen Horrible Things’: Children’s Experiences of the Online World. Available from: https://assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2024/10/Ive-seen-horrible-things-Online-Safety-Report-October-2024.pdf. [/ref], and evidence suggests that as many as two-fifths (39%) of people aged 11–25 have experienced cyberbullying in their lifetime[ref]The Children’s Society, and Young Minds (2018). Safety Net: Cyberbullying’s Impact on Young People’s Mental Health. Available from: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/media/dp0mu4l5/pcr144b_social_media_cyberbullying_inquiry_full_report.pdf. [/ref].

Girls, more so than boys, report having experienced ‘nasty or hurtful’ messages via communications technologies, suggesting a potential gendered nature to this harm[ref]Ofcom (2025). Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report, 2025. Available from: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/media-literacy-research/children/childrens-media-use-and-attitudes-report-2025/childrens-media-literacy-report-2025.pdf?v=396621. [/ref]. Similar inequalities appear for vulnerable young people, such as those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan[ref]An education, health and care (EHC) plan is for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support. EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support to meet those needs. [/ref]. In a UK survey of 9–16-year-olds, over a third of children with SEND (35%) and children with an EHC plan (38%) report encountering instances of abuse and bullying online, compared to 24% of those without these vulnerabilities[ref]Internet Matters (2025). Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital World: Year 4 Annual Index Report. Available from: https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/childrens-wellbeing-in-a-digital-world-index-report-2025/. [/ref]. There is less data on how other factors, like ethnicity and lived experience of poverty, relate to experiences of online harms like cyberbullying, and how these characteristics intersect with one another to influence experiences of these harms. This lack of data may be because of issues related to sampling, where sample sizes for identity groups become too small to meaningfully analyse, as well as considerations around ethics, particularly due to the sensitive nature of online harms.

Reflections from our Youth Insight Group

We shared with our Youth Insight Group some of our preliminary findings around social media use and well-being, highlighting that there is not enough evidence to confirm that social media definitely causes poor mental health. Youth Insight Group members were asked to reflect on what they would want technology companies and policymakers to know about how online platforms impact on their own well-being.

Cyberbullying emerged in the discussions. One group member reflected on how this form of harm can be for an all-encompassing for an individual.

Group members also discussed the role of social media and the negative consequences of social comparisons. One member commented that social media can enable social comparisons between both people you know and those you do not, leaving users feeling unhappy with their own lives. Another felt social media could alter people’s self-perceptions, particularly around body image.

There was a strong desire across the Youth Insight Group for better regulation and governance of social media platforms. Group members reflected on how the online environment can feel like a liminal space where ‘real-world rules’ do not apply, and they were worried about what this meant for accountability and responsibility. There were calls for better content moderation to ensure the content young people are exposed to on social media is age-appropriate and that there are measures to prevent people from taking on fake identities online. Underlying these views was a sense that technology companies should be more accountable for the services they provide to young people. Group members felt that parents and carers alone cannot be responsible for the content young people see online, particularly as many parents and carers do not know how children and young people spend their time online.

The necessity of online spaces was reflected on in relation to worries around addiction to technology. The group felt that care needs to be taken in understanding how people may relate to digital technologies and self-regulate their usage as everyday life becomes increasingly digitised.

In lieu of stronger regulation, the group also discussed the role of schools and the home. They felt that there could be more in the curriculum to teach young people to have healthier relationships with technology and learn how to navigate technology safely, with parents and carers also needing to pass on knowledge about staying safe online. It may be that, despite being characterised as a generation that is digitally native, 14–24-year-olds would value more structured support around how to engage with digital technologies.

The reflections from the Youth Insight Group demonstrate how top-of-mind online harms are for young people. At the same time, their comments allude to feeling unprepared and under-supported in their participation in digital spaces, particularly when this participation feels increasingly compulsory for day-to-day activities (schoolwork, applying for jobs, etc.), as discussed elsewhere in this commentary. Embedded in the discussions was the complexity of accountability and the extent to which corporations, as well as individuals and family, should be responsible for their online safety – a notion that our desk-based research did not explicitly explore.

Considerations for further research

The research explored above highlights the challenges of studying the relationship between well-being and digital technologies in young people’s journeys to adulthood. While there are indications that technology can be a double-edged sword for some individuals, the conditions under which someone might experience more harms than opportunities, or vice versa, are understudied. Further research into the following would support the richness of this evidence base and support the development of governance tools and regulations around many digital technologies:

• How digital technologies exacerbate or interact with existing societal inequalities around young people’s safety and well-being
• The intersectionality of experiences with digital technologies and the impacts of this on well-being
• How young people balance their expectations of autonomy and control with their expectations around accountability and safeguarding when they navigate online spaces, and the role of parents/carers in this balance at different life stages between 14 and 24.