How We Should Be Creating Better Experiences For Young People On Social Media

By Giselle Elsom, Managing Director of Truffle.Social

Social media’s impact on youth mental health continues to spark intense discussion, but a growing number of platforms are now experimenting with features aimed at providing support.

 

A Complex Picture

While there is yet to be a confirmed causal link between social media and poor mental health, the correlation to anxiety, sleep issues, and self-esteem is significant enough to draw serious attention from researchers, policymakers, and parents alike. At the same time, many young people report that social media is a source of connection, inspiration, and even coping.

UK Technology Secretary Mr. Kyle has floated the idea of a “social media curfew” and time caps to protect young users’ wellbeing. These ideas, whatever their degree of effectiveness, reflect a growing urgency to mitigate harms without completely severing young people’s access to online spaces.

What The Platforms Are Actually Doing

 

Several major platforms have introduced wellbeing tools in response to these concerns:

• Tiktok introduced meditation prompts and wind-down features to encourage better sleep
• Tiktok also introduced a family pairing functionality for parents to block access to the app at certain times of the day
• Meta recently updated their teen safety tools on Instagram and Facebook, including restrictions on live streaming and advanced protection within direct messaging
• Meta have worked on an AI system to detect when young people are lying about their age when signing up to the app
• Meta have made teenager’s accounts private by default
• YouTube launched a programme to teach teens how to recognise AI content to try and prevent spread of misinformation

So Platforms Are Taking Action But Are Young People Really Benefiting?

 

While these features may offer genuine value, their impact depends heavily on individual needs and behaviours. Mindfulness prompts or screen-time nudges may support users with attention-related challenges, and improved sleep tools might help those navigating low mood.

But these tools are not, and should not be seen as, substitutes for clinical or professional support for vulnerable young adults. It’s also important to recognise that these initiatives are not purely altruistic. They allow platforms to show responsibility under mounting public and regulatory scrutiny, and to retain trust and users in a highly competitive market.

We therefore cannot rely on these features alone to do it all.

As Dr Andrew Przybylski, Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, points out, young people with diagnosed mental health conditions use social media in distinctly different ways, particularly those with internalising issues like anxiety and depression.

This highlights how one-size-fits-all features may overlook the complexity of how different mental health conditions interact with digital platforms. For interventions to be genuinely effective, they must be grounded in a deeper understanding of these varied experiences and not just designed for optics or regulatory appeasement.

 

A Step In The Right Direction

These mental health-focused features on social platforms show awareness of the problem and willingness to do something about it. However, their real-world impact remains unclear.

Without addressing the deeper and more complex ways young people with different mental health conditions interact with these platforms, it’s difficult to say how meaningful these changes truly are.

As a social agency, we suggest that further progress will require a stronger collaboration between mental health professionals, platform designers and corporate bodies. Creating better experiences for young people on social media will require systems built with real understanding and measurable outcomes.

We also as an agency feel responsible to always consider how we approach our work across social media, to make sure we lead in taking a step in the right direction, influencing other companies and brands on social media to do better.