Safeguard social media use to protect the health of adolescents

A multi-disciplinary expert appraisal to inform the public authorities

One in two adolescents in France spend between two and five hours a day on a smartphone, often to connect to social media, a practice that is becoming increasingly widespread and frequent. According to the CREDOC 2025 digital barometer, 58% of 12-17 year-olds say they use social media every day. Most publish their own content or share and comment on that of others.

This situation led ANSES to undertake an unprecedented expert appraisal to shed light on the potential effects of social media use on the health of adolescents, in order to inform all stakeholders, including the public authorities, and help them take appropriate measures. To carry out this work, it drew on a multi-disciplinary group of experts including epidemiologists, biologists, child psychiatrists and psychologists, and researchers in information and communication studies. These specialists compiled and analysed more than a thousand scientific studies on the health effects of social media, making this expert appraisal unique in the scale of the data used. 

Powerful attention-getting technologies to which adolescents are particularly vulnerable

The experts studied the mechanisms used by social media to capture the attention of adolescents. "To assess the effects of social media on health, it was important to go beyond the time spent on these platforms and consider what adolescents actually do on social media, their motivations and their emotional engagement", explains Olivia Roth-Delgado, coordinator of the expert appraisal.

The social media business model aims to maximise user time for commercial purposes. The goal is to sell both advertising space and data on user preferences and habits. Companies developing social media therefore implement attention-getting strategies designed to keep users engaged for as long as possible. These strategies are based on powerful incentives such as manipulative interfaces (dark patterns) and algorithms that offer ultra-personalised content. These algorithms can generate a spiral effect where users are locked into content that is increasingly targeted and sometimes extreme.

Social media as it is currently designed exploits the specific needs of adolescents in terms of social interaction and comparison, sensation-seeking and risk-taking, and the search for peer recognition.

"Adolescence is a sensitive period in the development and construction of individual and social identity. Adolescents are less able to regulate their emotions and behaviour than adults, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of social media", explain the experts.

Numerous health effects identified, particularly in the area of mental health

Impaired sleep

By maximising the time spent on social media, bedtime is delayed and the process of falling asleep can be disrupted, resulting in impaired sleep. Poor-quality sleep can lead to daytime sleepiness, irritability and unhappiness, and can promote depressive symptoms.

Low self-esteem

Exchanging visual content that focuses on physical appearance, whether or not the images are retouched, can undermine body image. These practices, combined with social demands to conform to body ideals, can exacerbate eating disorders. The expert appraisal also confirms that exposure to fictitious or idealised content on these platforms can lead to low self-esteem and is therefore fertile ground for the emergence of depressive symptoms.

Risky behaviour

Personalisation algorithms increase exposure to content that may relate to risky behaviour such as eating disorders, self-harm, drug use or suicide attempts.

Exposure to cyberviolence

Cyberviolence and cyberbullying (insults, rumours, exclusion, blackmail or the distribution of intimate images without consent) have repercussions on mental health. Engagement in cyberviolence is amplified by anonymity and the ease with which threats can be disseminated.

Girls more exposed on social media

Lastly, the expert appraisal showed that girls are more affected than boys by all these effects. There are several reasons for this:

• girls use social media more than boys;
• they are more likely to use highly visual social media based on exchanging and sharing images and self-portrayal;
• they are subject to greater social pressure linked to gender stereotypes;
• they are victims of cyberbullying more often than boys;
• they also seem to attach more importance to the content of social media, with greater emotional engagement.

"Social media acts as a sounding board for certain social dynamics", explain the experts.

Platforms must guarantee social media that does not endanger the health of minors

To protect the health of adolescents, ANSES believes that priority should be given to tackling the source of harmful uses of social media. It therefore recommends that minors should only be able to access social media that has been designed and configured to protect their health.

This means that digital platforms should implement the age limit set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to prevent access by under-13s, with reliable systems for verifying age and obtaining parental consent.

This also implies a fundamental review of the operating principles of social media: refraining from the use of manipulative interface techniques, prohibiting the dissemination of harmful content (risky behaviour, gambling, extreme diets, violent, pornographic or hateful content, harassment, etc.), limiting the amplification of content that is harmful to health, and regulating features designed to increase, maintain or extend use of the service by users.

The Agency also reiterates that it is the responsibility of the platforms to guarantee social media services that safeguard the health of users who are minors. Enforcing this responsibility requires robust regulatory and monitoring measures. To this end, ANSES underlines the importance of promoting compliance with the Digital Services Act, which has been applicable since 17 February 2024.

For Olivier Merckel, Head of the Unit for Assessment of Risks Related to Physical Agents, "the numerous negative effects on the health of adolescents identified and documented by this ANSES expert appraisal call for the adoption of a social media governance framework that is capable of meeting the public health challenges."

The use of social media has a lasting influence on the way adolescents interact and perceive the world once they become adults. ANSES therefore stresses the importance of implementing policies to promote digital education and support, particularly for parents. The Agency also believes that these preventive measures should be developed jointly with adolescents, because awareness-raising initiatives will be all the more effective if adolescents are involved in shaping them.