New Research Exposes Social Media's Hidden Costs

0:00If you feel like your brain is a browser with 47 tabs open and music playing from one of them, this episode is for you. because today we're going to talk about what social media is doing to our mental health. Not for kids only, but for adults too. And we're going to talk about this as people who actually use this stuff, not like monks yelling at the mountains. But here's the thing. I make a living posting videos on these platforms. Some of these videos get more total watch time than some people will spend talking to their own family in their entire life. So, in a theory, I'm part of the problem.

0:36But I'm also looking at the data and realizing why we're way deeper than we think. 15 years ago, most of us still had stretches of honest-to-goodness boredom. Waiting at the doctor's office, standing in line at the DMV, laying on the couch on a Sunday afternoon staring at the ceiling. You had to sit with your own thoughts. Or talk to another human. Or read. Or just exist. And now think about your last week. When was the last time you were truly bored and didn't reach for a screen? Not fake bored. Not the three-second ugh while your apps load. I'm talking real boredom. Most of us can't remember.

1:14We've basically cured boredom, and that sounds nice until you realize boredom was actually doing important maintenance work for our brains. Boredom is where imagination used to show up. It's where kids used to invent games in the backyard. It's where adults used to connect dots and solve problems or realize, hey, something in my life needs to change. Now, the second boredom knocks, we throw it off the porch and hand our brains a digital pacifier. That is social media. And here's where the news comes in. We're not just guessing that this has consequences anymore. We've got the receipts. Internal documents from Netta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, have come out in lawsuits.

1:55One of their own researchers compared Instagram to a drug and literally said, we're basically pushers. Not critics, not outside activists, their own people. They've even run experiments where users took a break from the platform for a week. Those people reported lower depression, less anxiety, less loneliness, and less social comparison. And instead of hitting the panic button and rethinking the product, the company Meta allegedly shut down the research and buried it. Publicly, they told lawmakers, we don't know if our apps cause harm, but privately their data was pointing the other way, and they're not alone.

2:37There are lawsuits from school districts and families all over the country accusing big platforms of designing apps to be addictive for kids and teens. We're talking Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube. The claim is quite simple. They knew how sticky this stuff was for young brains, and they knew the mental health red flags and they did it anyway because engagement is money. Now this is not some wild conspiracy. It's literally how the business model works. They sell your attention to advertisers. The more of your day they own, the more they earn. So the app is not a neutral tool. It's an attention machine tuned to squeeze a little more time out of you, especially if you're young, impulsive, and chronically online.

3:20At the same time, doctors and researchers are trying to measure what this does to our minds. One meta-study looked at 10 ,000 people across 71 surveys and found that heavy consumption of short-form social media, things like TikTok reels and YouTube shorts, is associated with shorter attention spans and weaker self-control, not just for kids, but for adults too. People who can't get through a chapter of a book. People who can't finish a podcast without checking their phone. People who sit through a meeting without sneaking a scroll. The brain starts to expect constant novelty. Fast cuts, new clips, new drama, new outrage, dopamine at every corner.

4:02It's like it's training your attention span to be a chihuahua instead of a sheepdog. Always yanking your arm towards whatever just moved. On top of that, we've got studies where people simply took a week off of social media. No grand life overall, just a break. And in that one week, anxiety went down, depressive symptoms went down, sleep got better. It's not a miracle cure, but it is a strong hint that apps are not just sitting there passively in the background. Meanwhile, places like Yale are launching big research projects to study all of this into more nuance. They're looking at how social media relates to social anxiety, emotional regulation, ADHD, and attention, and they're trying to answer the big question we all have.

4:45Is social media causing the problems? Or are people with problems using more social media? The honest answer right now is some of both, but the more we look, the less comfortable it feels to say that it's harmless. And because governments never miss a chance to get involved, they're starting to step in. Australia is rolling out one of the strictest age laws in the entire world. Under-16 aged kids are not supposed to have social media accounts at all. Snapchat has already started age verifications over there, and if they think that you are underage, you've got to prove your age with ID, bank info, or a face scan.

5:24If you can't, your account gets locked. To a lot of parents, that sounds great. To a lot of kids, it sounds like prison. To privacy folks, well, it's a complete disaster because they're getting caught in the crossfire as the government sucks up data willy-nilly. In the U.S., some states are treating social media like tobacco. Think about warning labels for under 18 users. We've got state attorney generals suing TikTok and others for addictive design, and we've got California mandating health warnings about mental health risks. Whether those laws stick in court or not, the political system has clearly decided this is no longer just an app.

6:03But there is a piece that doesn't get talked about enough. This isn't just about anxiety and depression, it's also about what social media is exposing kids to and how early. Common Sense Media did a national survey of teens. The average age kids said they saw their first pornography was unfortunately at the age of 12. About 15 % said they saw it for the first time when they were 10 or younger. And a lot of exposure was accidental. They weren't sneaking a DVD or scrolling or clicking. They were on social media or gaming apps and the content came to them. This is absolutely devastating. Think about that for a second.

6:44We have 11, 12, and even 10-year-olds being fed pornographic material by these algorithms and it is incredibly damaging. And to make it even worse, their developing brains haven't even hit puberty yet and all of this stuff is going to damage them long term, as has been shown in many studies. Really, it is a ticking mental health time bomb. Now layer on top everything else they're dealing with. Social comparison from Instagram, fear of missing out from Snapchat, the pressure to be funny on TikTok, really all of the above from all of the above platforms, the constant drip of bad news and outrage, and now explicit content they didn't even ask to see.

7:26No wonder we're watching teenage anxiety and depression numbers go up. No wonder school counselors are overwhelmed, and no wonder parents feel like they're trying to hold back the ocean with a sandcastle. And here's the part that might surprise you. A lot of parents over the last 10 years are genuinely blindsided by this. The smartphone hit. Social media exploded. Everybody was told it was just how kids communicate now. So they handed devices over the way previous generations handed over car keys, assuming there was little risk. But what they didn't see coming were the algorithms. They didn't realize that by sixth grade, their kids might be swimming in adult content, self-harm videos, eating disorder tips, and influencers glorifying lifestyles completely detached from reality.

8:09And unfortunately, they can't tell what's real and what's not like we can. But here's the twist. Parents today are not as naive. They're scared. They've seen the unfiltered smartphones and what they can do. And so you're starting to see a quiet rebellion. Landlines are coming back, not as retro decor, but as a parenting strategy. Some parents are literally reinstalling landlines into their homes instead of giving smartphones to their kids. You want to talk to a friend? Great. Use the landline where everybody can hear what kind of conversation you're having and everybody knows what's happening.

8:44You want to call your friend? You're going to have to look up their phone number or memorize it. No apps, no secret DMs, no disappearing photos, no predators, just a voice and a cord. There are even wait-until-eighth pledges where parents agree not to give their kids smartphones until at least 8th grade. There are dumb phones and kid-specific devices that can only call or text pre-approved numbers. There are landline-style gadgets like the tin can that are basically kid-friendly house phones. It sounds old school, but it's actually pretty radical because it's saying, my kid doesn't need a pocket casino with explicit material, predators, and politics in order to function socially.

9:24And for some families, it's making a huge difference. Kids are talking more, they're actually calling friends, they're playing outside, they're not constantly falling down YouTube or TikTok rabbit holes. And of course, it's not perfect, nothing is, but at least it's moving control away from the algorithm and giving it back to the families instead of the big tech overlords. So now let's bring this all back to adults because it's really easy to talk about what this is doing to kids and pretend that we're fine. We're not. Think about your own habits. How many times a day do you check your phone without meaning to?

9:58How often do you open an app just for a minute and come up for air 20 minutes later without remembering half of what you watched? How many nights have you lost an hour of sleep scrolling? There are studies now showing that heavy social media uses linked to lower attention spans, more anxiety, more depression, and worse sleep in adults too, which could be impacting all of the above. There are people in their 30s and 40s who literally can't sit through a movie anymore without grabbing their phone mid-scene. And it turns out Netflix is designing their TV shows to be more scroll-ready, aka they know people are going to be on their phones while watching shows or barely watching the shows at all.

10:44We joke about goldfish brains, but it's not that funny when you realize your job, your relationship, your faith all depend on your ability to be present and have a proper attention span. And here's where I've come to my own part in this. I make content that benefits these broken attention loops. I see it in the analytics. Shorter clips hook faster, faster cuts hold attention just a little bit longer. If I make 10 videos, the platform will push the one that keeps you watching the longest, even if it's not the most helpful, and if you binge my content, the algorithm smiles, and, well, I get paid.

11:18I have over 3 million subscribers on YouTube doing this. I've posted videos that have racked up millions of views and hours of watch time, and that means there are days when people have spent more minutes watching me shoot steel and talk about gear than talking to their spouses or their kids, and that is not a flex. I'm saying that to remind both of us that the whole system is built to trade one thing, our time, and we get entertainment and information back. But if we're not intentional, that trade gets lopsided really fast, and these algorithms and platforms win. So what do we do? We're not just going to uninstall the entire internet.

11:58We're not just going to go back to rotary phones and VHS tapes. And honestly, social media is not 100 % bad. I've seen it help people. I've seen vets find community. I've seen isolated teenagers find friends who get them. And I've seen people learn real-life skills, find jobs, and start businesses because of a video that they watched. So it isn't a social media is pure evil rant, but there are massive problems with it. The question isn't, is social media good or bad? The question is, what is it doing to me? And do I like what it is doing to myself? So here's my challenge for you. start by getting brutally honest about your own habits.

12:37Ask yourself, when was the last time I was bored on purpose? And when was the last time I stood in line and just looked around without pulling my phone out? And when was the last time I sat on the couch and let my brain idle without reaching for a screen? If the honest answer is, I can't remember, then that is a signal. Not a reason to panic, but a reason to experiment. Try a one week social media detox. That's my go-to and you feel so much better after. I find my brain and the pathways to open up specific apps and scroll for a minute. Even if it's just my YouTube analytics app, they're completely gone.

13:14I don't feel that need and it is incredibly helpful. So try that and delete apps from your phone while you do this just to make it so you have to reinstall them later. It's a little bit inconvenient, but incredibly nice. You might feel a little twitchy for the first couple days. Your thumb will literally hover over empty spots where the apps used to be. And you might feel more bored than you have in years, but it will actually feel great. It means your brain is waking up from the drip. Use that boredom, go for a walk, talk to your spouse, think of new business ideas, play with your kids, call a friend, read an actual book, don't forget time to pray, and think about your life without somebody else's video shouting directions at you and telling you how to think.

13:54And if you're a parent, and if you're a parent, all of this news about the impacts of social media should tell you something. Don't wait for a guidance counselor to call. Don't wait for your kids to stumble into this explicit content at 12 and then deal with the fallout and silence. Assume that the internet is going to send things to your family you never asked for and build the guardrails now. Maybe that means no smartphones until a certain age, and maybe it means a landline in the kitchen, and maybe it means devices stay out of the bedroom at night. Maybe it means you actually talk to your kids explicitly, and what to do when, not if, they see it.

14:29It's not a shamey freakout thing either. It's kind of everywhere, so we have to handle it type of thing. Kids need to know that this stuff exists, that predators exist, and they need to know that none of it is real and that these predators can actually hurt them. But in the end, the big platforms are going to keep doing what they do. Their incentives aren't going to change anytime soon, and they're going to fight regular laters. They're going to say they care about safety while pushing the content that keeps us hooked, and they're going to market a take-a-break feature and then turn around and build better recommendation systems.

15:00We can push for better laws. We can support research. We can sue when they lie. All that matters, but we can't outsource our mental health to Congress or Silicon Cone Valley. In the end of the day, you and I are the only ones who can decide how many hours these apps get. Or the ones who say, okay, I'm done being entertained. It's okay to be bored now. So here's where I'll leave you. Pick one thing to change this week. Maybe it's a seven-day social media detox, or maybe it's deleting just one app that always makes you feel worse. Maybe it's putting the phone in another room after 9 p.m., and maybe it's getting your kid a landline instead of DMing them.

15:36Whatever it is, make it intentional because the platforms are absolutely being intentional with you. They want your time. The only question is whether you're going to match that on your side with your own intentionality. Thank you for diving into this new news and research on the effects of social media. This is the Let Freedom podcast. Today we have a review from Jimmy B who said thank you for the great insights that come along with this news. Couldn't say it better myself. Thank you, Jimmy B. We really appreciate that comment. You guys go leave a comment on Apple Podcasts and a five-star review.

16:09We'll read them in our next full-length episode, and we'll see you in the next one.