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SeedPublished 2026-10-23

Social media and adolescents, measured

Social media appears on 402 recent papers across the tracked journals, mostly as text data in AI and management research; only 18 carry a mental-health, adolescent, well-being or children keyword. Several countries are banning social media for under-16s. What does the evidence actually show, and what will the bans reveal?

economicshealthtechnology

What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 402 papers carry a social-media, smartphone or screen-time keyword (180 in AI journals, 117 in management, 52 in finance). Only 18 of them also carry a mental-health, adolescent, teen, youth, well-being, depression, suicide, children or student keyword; "social media use" appears on 13 papers and "adolescent mental health" on 7.

Questions#

  • Did adolescent mental health indicators change after Australia's under-16 ban and similar laws, compared with countries without them?
  • Does the effect of use depend on what is used for what (passive scrolling versus messaging friends), and can that be measured without self-reports?
  • Do the bans reduce use, or move it to platforms outside the law?

Data that could help#

Health surveys and clinical records by age and country, app usage data from device studies, and the dates and scope of bans.

Next step#

Compare trends in adolescent mental health and app usage in Australia with those in New Zealand and Canada around the ban's start.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
social media use1#288134
adolescent mental health0–10
digital well-being0–9

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/social-media-and-adolescents.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Social media and adolescents, measured. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/social-media-and-adolescents

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-social-media-and-adolescents,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Social media and adolescents, measured},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/social-media-and-adolescents}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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