Mental Health Risks From Social Media Examined by Two New Studies

Findings come as platforms face a growing number of lawsuits brought by families nationwide, alleging software developers created the social media mental health risks that now plague children nationwide.

New research warns that overuse of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other popular platforms can lead to delusional views of reality for teens, adding to the evidence being presented in social media addiction lawsuits now being pursued by families throughout the U.S.

Two new studies were recently released, which highlight the potential mental health risks from overuse of social media. The findings are likely to play a role in the rapidly growing litigation, which claims that developers intentionally designed their platforms to increase engagement and screen time, while deliberately overlooking the harmful mental health risks for teens and young adults.

Families allege that the tactics employed by social media companies have caused self-destructive behavior, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, suicides and long-term psychological damage among a generation of U.S. youth.

In one study published in the medical journal BMC Psychiatry, researchers from Simon Fraser University reveal that increased social media use is frequently linked to narcissism, body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

“In particular, an underdeveloped and incoherent sense of self, in conjunction with ‘real life’ social isolation that inhibits identify formation and facilitates virtual social interactions, may lead to use of social media to generate and maintain a more or less delusional sense of self identity,” the researchers noted. “The delusions involved may be mental (as in narcissism and erotomania), or somatic (as in body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders, encompassing either the entire body or specific body parts).”

The researchers found that increased social media use could cause delusions by detaching users from reality, after conducting a systematic review of more than 2,600 studies. This can lead to problems in interpreting romantic and sexual relationships, distort views of reality, and cause teens to be paranoid about always being watched.

Researchers concluded that individuals with high levels of delusionality would particularly benefit from reduced social media use “to help alleviate the negative impacts of this activity, as well as from developing awareness of the problematic features of social media platforms that are salient to their particular disorder and situation.”

Real World vs. Social Media Friendships

The other study was published by researchers from Northwestern University and a number of other major medical schools nationwide in the Journal of Adolescent Health last month, finding that there was a qualitative difference between real world friendships, which led to better mental health outcomes, and purely online friendships.

The researchers investigated peer relationships within three U.S.-based pediatric cohorts. According to the findings, the more hours youths spent on social media, the higher their chance of being in a high psychopathology and low well-being group. They determined that children who spent seven hours or more per day online had the greatest risks of poor mental health.

“Positive peer relationships were the strongest predictor of positive mental health,” the team concluded.

March 2025 Social Media Addiction Lawsuit Update

As the link between use of social media and mental health risks for teens becomes more apparent across scientific research, more than 1,500 lawsuits have been filed nationwide, each indicating that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, among others, were intentionally designed to addict teens and increase advertising profits.

While personal injury claims have been filed by families and individuals who have suffered harm from the intentional designs of these platforms, school districts have also filed lawsuits against social media giants, seeking to recover the costs of implementing mental health programs and other initiatives designed to combat student addiction to these platforms. 

These districts argue that the addictive nature of social media has forced them to spend significantly on support services, qualifying as a public nuisance that imposes undue financial burdens on educational institutions.

In recent months, the platforms have made several attempts to dismiss the litigation, arguing that they should be insulated from liability based on state-level legal precedents, which require a direct causal link between their actions and consumer harm. 

However, earlier this month the U.S. District Judge presiding over the litigation largely rejected a number of motions to dismiss lawsuits over the social media mental health risks. The court found that public nuisance laws should adapt to address new forms of harm like those created by digital platforms, allowing claims brought under the laws of several states to move forward.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in personal injury and wrongful death complaints brought throughout the federal court system, all social media teen addiction lawsuits were consolidated as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in late 2022, centralizing the cases before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

To help manage the litigation and gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the claims, Judge Rogers has indicated that several bellwether trials will be held involving both individual student injuries and claims brought by school districts.The first trial is expected to begin in 2026.

Although the outcome of these early trial dates will not have any binding impact on other families pursuing lawsuits, or claims brought by school districts, the average payouts awarded by the juries may impact the amount the companies may be required to pay in any social media settlements over the teen addiction problems.