Effectiveness of Interventions that Influence Adolescents’ Health Behaviors, Mental Health, and Wellbeing Due to Social Media Use

In the last decade, there has been an increase in smartphone use among adolescents in the United States due to social media’s presence in our society. With most youth having access to smartphones, many spend their time using them for social media platforms. Increasing rates of mental health conditions among adolescents and time spent online have raised concern among parents, health care providers, and educators. There is no doubt that increasing rates of social media use positively correlates with the increasing prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicide among adolescents over the last decade. Several interventions are available for clinicians, parents, adolescents, and communities to utilize and implement to change the health behaviors of adolescents surrounding social media use. Our team screened 244 articles by title and abstract from PubMed and OVID as well as interventions through an online search to yield a total of five articles and interventions relevant for review. We extracted data studying mental health and wellbeing of adolescents from the outcomes of interventions designed to limit social media use. School-based interventions show some promise in changing the behaviors of adolescents and social media use with their peers. The findings of this review have several implications for designing future interventions to target the impact of social media on adolescent mental health and wellbeing as the popularity and frequent use continues to increase