Social media: a danger to teenage girls?

In 2003 – before he came up with Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg launched Facemash. It featured photos of Harvard students side by side, and invited users to vote on which was the more attractive. The site was swiftly closed down by college authorities, said Amelia Tait in the New Statesman, and Zuckerberg later admitted he’d been a “jerk” for starting it – but it wasn’t an original idea. Ratemyface.com had launched in 1999; it was followed by Hot or Not, and Fitsort. It still goes on, but today’s teenagers don’t have to visit a specialist website to find out what people think of their looks: it’s all over social media. It seems that ten to 14-year-olds in particular are obsessed with posting selfies on Facebook and Instagram, and seeing how many “likes” they generate. It’s unclear why they feel the need to open themselves up to such public judgement – but it’s hard to believe it’s healthy.

Certainly, there is a growing concern about girls’ mental health, said Radhika Sanghani in The Daily Telegraph. According to a new Department for Education survey, more than a third of 14 to 15-year-old girls suffer from symptoms of psychological distress – 10% more than a decade ago. The figure for boys is just 15%. Experts say that girls are facing a huge range of pressures, but the way they use social media may be a major factor. It has been noted that whereas boys tend to use it for gaming, girls use it to see what their friends are doing. If the reality of their own lives doesn’t match their perception of other people’s, feelings of anxiety and low self-worth may follow.

There are myriad theories about why girls are suffering, said Gaby Hinsliff on The Pool. It could be partly down to them living on social media, where everyone seems to be prettier and thinner and smarter. Or it could be the burden of schoolwork, and anxieties about their future: today’s teenagers have little hope of walking into the kind of secure jobs their parents took for granted. But the truth is, we don’t know. We don’t even know whether boys are suffering less – or just less willing to admit to feelings of inadequacy. It’s a serious problem, and with mental health services already overstretched, one that needs urgent investigation.