Trigger warning: The following story discusses suicide and self-harm which some readers may find distressing.

Leading psychologists have called for urgent action amid “simply frightening” youth mental health statistics, at the opening day of a social media summit.

The Social Media Summit in Sydney, jointly hosted by the NSW and South Australia state governments, yesterday convened experts, policymakers and young people to discuss the impact social media is having on young people’s lives and how the government can best support digital wellbeing.

Michael Carr-Gregg, an adolescent psychologist from Melbourne, told the summit at his psychology clinic children as young as eight-years-old are presenting with self-harm injuries.

“We are witnessing a generational deterioration in the mental and emotional wellbeing of our teenagers the like of which I’ve never seen before,” Dr Carr-Gregg said.

“The statistics are not just alarming, they are simply frightening.

“There is no doubt that after 30 years in the business, something seismic is happening to the mental health of our young people.”

Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, agreed, saying social media and smartphone use is increasing at the same time as serious mental health issues.

“The more hours per day a teen spends on social media, the more likely it is they will have what’s called internalising and externalising problems like depression and anger,” Dr Twenge added.

According to a report by Melbourne University, over 40 per cent of people aged 15-24 were psychologically distressed in 2021, up from 18.4 per cent in 2011. Government data shows that in 2022, deaths by suicide represented 30.9 per cent of all deaths in young people aged 15–17 years, up from 16.5 per cent in 2001.

Central News spoke with Daniel Cash, a 19-year-old university student from Melbourne and regular contributor to The Age, who has written widely on ‘Gen Zs’ use of social media.

Cash said he has witnessed social media driving mental health issues among his peers.

“The first thing you see when you open Snapchat is a selfie, so you’re seeing your face hundreds of times a week, more than any other generation has ever been confronted with,” he said.

“There’s this huge image-obsessed culture that is growing. I noticed among girlfriends especially, this really difficult emphasis on beauty and body image.”

Cash believes Instagram followers, like counts and ‘snap scores’ have quantified teenagers’ perception of their self-worth.

“We don’t have communities and connections like previous generations did,” he said.

We know for a fact that social media has changed childhood, and it is doing our children harm.

Speaking to the summit, Twenge agreed that “everybody else’s life looks more glamorous on Instagram” and that there is a competition for likes and followers among teenagers.

Sarah Maguire, a clinical psychologist specialising in eating disorders, told the summit over 40 per cent of young Australians have concerning worry about their body, with an increasing number of younger children displaying mental health concerns related to their body image.

“There is consistent evidence across a number of studies showing that social media is related to an increase in negative body image,” Professor Maguire said.

“Appearance based platforms put people at an increased risk of a deterioration.”

Dr Twenge told the summit: “There’s a lot of information on these sites about exactly how to harm yourself, exactly how to take your own life, exactly how to starve yourself.”

Between 2009 and 2023, Australian government data shows there has been a tripling in the rate of intentional self-harm hospitalisations in girls aged 14 years and below.

NSW Premier Chris Minns and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas have both argued it is necessary to impose a nationwide ban on social media for children. Speaking to Nine’s Today Show yesterday, Minns called social media “a global, unregulated experiment”.

Malinauskas told the summit in his opening remarks that “the results are in, the science is settled, we know for a fact that social media has changed childhood, and it is doing our children harm”.

Both premiers called for a national, consistent approach to ban children under 16 years from accessing social media.

Dr Twenge told the summit she supported the governments proposed ban.

“Given the data that we have, raise the minimum age to 16 and verify age,” she said. “I think that would do the most good.”

Maguire agreed, but warned that without enforceable age verification a ban will “mean nothing”.

Radio host Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli, co-founder of the 36 Months movement, also called for the minimum age to be raised to 16 years.

Wipfli read out a letter to the summit from the mother of 12-year-old Sydney schoolgirl Charlotte O’Brien who took her own life last month after being the target of cyberbullying.

“So many lives are affected by comments made by children too young to understand the effects of their actions and their impulsive mistakes,” Wipfli read.

“These platforms are always on, young people are drawn in and addicted to them with no refuge, they come home… with no way of shutting the world’s cruelty out. It’s right there in their pockets.

“The love of my life is gone. Please raise the age of social media to at least 16.”

The behavioural symptoms I see in my clients in relation to social media, mirror those seen in substance addiction.

However, not all experts agree that a social media ban would benefit young Australians.

Headspace CEO Jason Trethowan said last month that social media is one of the ways young people learn about mental health and the supports available to them.

“Banning access to social media is a blunt instrument that may have unintended consequences,” Trethowan added.

Cash said that while he supports the intention of a ban he also worries about the unintended consequences.

“I think the danger with a ban is that it could potentially be heavy handed or maybe even promote laziness,” he said.

“People could say, ‘okay, we’ve got a ban now, we don’t need to do anything else.”

Despite most social media companies currently requiring children to be at least 13 years old to sign up to their platforms, research from the eSafety Commission shows that almost a quarter of eight to 10-year-olds and close to half of 11 to 13-year-olds use social media weekly or more often.

Frances Haugen, the American data scientist behind the 2021 Facebook files leak, said social media companies “entice and engage” teenagers to maximise their financial gains while misleading the public about the dangers of their platforms.

“Social media acts as a method for self-soothing that pulls you deeper,” she said.

Dr Carr-Gregg told the summit “the behavioural symptoms I see in my clients in relation to social media, mirror those seen in substance addiction”.

Amid growing concerns about the addictive nature of social media, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant reported a 313 per cent rise in cyberbullying reports over the four years leading up to 2024.

Grant told the summit in the 2023-24 financial year, the eSafety Commission received more than 7,000 reports of teenagers sharing intimate images without consent, including through the use of deepfake and nudifying apps, largely to target their female peers.

“We know that these reports are just the tip of the iceberg,” Grant said.

She called for mandatory industry codes that require social media companies to take reasonable steps to safeguard the spread of harmful content and to prevent young people’s access to pornography.

Minns told the media yesterday that the drafting of laws banning social media is expected to start within the next few days. Meanwhile, the social media summit will conclude in Adelaide today.

Main photo created using GenCraft AI.