The impact of social media on young people’s mental health and well-being is a growing topic of concern among parents, educators, health care professionals and regulators. And now, nearly half of US teens say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age — and almost the same proportion say they’re cutting back on social media use.

Parents are more worried than teens about teen mental health. Both groups – especially parents – partly blame social media. But teens also see benefits.

We know that social media can be harmful to teens. Meta has found in its own research that Instagram makes body image worse for one in three teen girls,