---
title: "Social media and adolescents, measured (research idea)"
description: "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?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/social-media-and-adolescents
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/social-media-and-adolescents.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "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."
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["economics", "health", "technology"]
keywords: ["social media use", "adolescent mental health", "digital well-being"]
---

# 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?

## 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.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| social media use | 1 | #2881 | 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 5, 1 | 34 |
| adolescent mental health | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0 | 10 |
| digital well-being | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 0 | 9 |

## 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

```bibtex
@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}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).