Social media hurts girls' mental health and education potential, says UNESCO report

Girls around the world tend to spend more time on social media than boys and it's hurting their men‐ tal health, says a new re‐ port from the United Na‐ tions Educational, Scientif‐ ic and Cultural Organiza‐ tion (UNESCO).

In the latest edition of the agency's Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report re‐ leased on Thursday, re‐ searchers examined the in‐ tersection of education and technology as it relates to girls.

Based on UNESCO data and published research from academics around the world, it broaches a range of topics, including female students' engagement with technology, gender comparison of digital skills and attitudes toward science, technology, engi‐ neering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

Social media was noted as an area of concern. Some findings include:

Social media algorithms can magnify negative gender norms and practices, thus impacting students' well‐ being.

The wellbeing of girls, who tend to spend more time on social media, is un‐ der more strain than boys.

Social media users re‐ ported more body-related image concerns than nonusers.

The addictive design of some platforms can lead to excessive screen time and distract students from acade‐ mics and extracurricular ac‐ tivities, and may also affect attention spans and learning habits.

WATCH | How too much time on social media can have negative effects for girls:

'Negative impacts' on learning

The report arrives at a time when lawsuits against‐ social media giants and up‐ dates to online harms legisla‐ tion have contributed to more scrutiny into how the digital world impacts young people.

Girls are more negatively affected by social media than boys, for instance in develop‐ ing negative feelings and emotions over body image, according to Manos Antoni‐ nis, the Paris-based director of UNESCO's ongoing GEM report.

"That also has impacts negative impacts - on learn‐ ing and that is where we're really concerned."

In education circles, tech‐ nology is generally viewed in a positive light, he noted, be‐ cause "of the potential it brings to improving the con‐ tent, making so many re‐ sources available at the tip of our fingers [and] engaging young people with the new opportunities."

Feeling included in their classrooms is key to academ‐ ic success, but if a student feels singled out, ridiculed or bullied on increasingly ubiq‐ uitous social media, "they disengage from their educa‐ tion and that is something that we don't want to see."

Young people struggle process content, mum says

Whitby, Ont., parent Kelly Dy‐ nes' daughter should be graduating Grade 12 this year, but hospital visits and treatment for anorexia have delayed the teen's schooling. Dynes attributes the 17-yearold's disordered eating to "a perfect storm" of different factors, but believes social media played a significant role.

Though her daughter had been an A-student, Dynes said online content led her teen down a damaging path where she began to con‐ stantly question herself, thinking: "I'm not enough. I can't do it. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not fit enough. I'm not smart enough."

Just before the pandemic, the teen was a bright, highachieving eighth grader fasci‐ nated by biology, botany, the environment, painting and crafts. After classes first moved online, Dynes saw her daughter develop an interest in fitness and exercise videos, which morphed into searching out healthy eating content, which then shifted to "how to cook to be fit" or "how to cook to be thin."

By September 2020, the teen had her first treatment for anorexia. She continues to pursue treatment at a fa‐ cility in the U.S., as she gets back on track with her schooling virtually.

"Social media being un‐ regulated, kids ... get sent this content and they really don't have the ability to pro‐ cess it and understand what's good, what's bad, what's real, [and] what's not real," Dynes said.

WATCH | How social media 'rabbit holes' can hurt developing teen minds:

For some young people, interacting and communicat‐ ing with others online is valu‐ able in filling the "social buck‐ et" in their lives, said Dr. Rachel Mitchell, a child and youth psychiatrist at Sunny‐ brook Health Sciences in Toronto.

Still, that UNESCO flagged social media as a concern sends an important message about its potential influence on girls today, she added.

"It sucks you in so to speak, into what's called a rabbit hole. And if you're not in a good place mentally, the ability to a) process what you're seeing, b) regulate what you're seeing and c) cut yourself off, is extremely hard," Mitchell said.

"There's no parent eye around… and so you're really left, literally, to your own de‐ vices to fend for yourself."

Intensifying long-stand‐ ing problems

In the past, teen and wom‐ en's magazines were blamed for fuelling negative body image concerns in girls, but the difference now is that on‐ line content is unrelenting, Mitchell noted.

"You wouldn't always have a magazine in your back pocket to look at every spare moment ... which is essential‐ ly what's happening [with smartphones]. So it's the volume and the intensity of the information. The vulnera‐ bility really hasn't changed," she said.

"That was already there in society and it's just magnified that much more."

Mitchell acknowledges that regulating social media is a complex discussion in‐ volving a host of issues, view‐ points and stakeholders.

"We need to have conver‐ sations about social media in schools. We need to have conversations about social media in our family lives. We need to have conversations about how much social media we as individuals are going to allow ourselves to use - and all those things ap‐ ply to teenagers and younger children as well," she said.