Teens Find Social Media Helps Friendships, but Hurts Sleep

In a survey of almost 1,500 U.S. teenagers by Pew Research Center, between half and three quarters said that social media apps neither negatively nor positively influenced certain parts of their lives. However, among those who thought they did, sleep was the aspect most often named as being affected negatively.

TikTok specifically was mentioned as a main culprit of teens losing sleep. 37 percent of respondents said the social media app influenced their sleep negatively, while 7 percent said it had a positive effect – an overall 30-point net negative for TikTok on the sleep front. Snapchat's score stood at a net negative 20 points, while Instagram scored -17 points.

Productivity was equally hurt by the apps in question. While 55 percent to 65 percent of teens said they thought social media made no difference, the rest of the respondents had a negative rather than a positive view. Here, hurt productivity outweighted increased productivity by 13 percentage points for TikTok, 9 for Snapchat and 7 for Instagram.

But teens also rated some changes as a net positive. Friendships were reportedly aided by social media use, with a net positive 20 points achieved by TikTok, net positive 30 points given to Instagram and a high net positive 37 points for Snapchat, which focuses on peer-to-peer communication rather than posts.

Surprisingly, teens also gave a net positive rating to effects of social media apps on mental health. Yet, the positivity surplus was much smaller here. 19 percent rated TikTok's influence as positive, while 9 percent said it was negative. The gap was even smaller for Snapchat (+7 points) and Instagram (+2 points).