social media

One of America's top pediatricians says she has seen a "clear link" between depression and social media use among teenage girls and encourages parents to re-think their smartphone strategy.

A social media post about Jesus by actor Jamie Foxx sparked a mini-controversy over the weekend and forced him to apologize, although many of his supporters said the spat was all about nothing.

Although Fox didn't go into details about his condition, he debunked rumors that he was blind or paralyzed. In the video's caption, Foxx wrote: "Thank u a billion to everybody…been a long road but all the prayers great people and God got me through…"

According to American psychologist Jean Twenge, smartphones and social media directly correlate with the rise in depression and self-harm among Gen Z. In 36 countries, including the U.S. and U.K., teens are much lonelier than they were 15 years ago. Not only that, but nearly 30 percent of American girls are clinically depressed, and the rate of suicide for 10-to-24-year-olds has tripled.

The study by the Center for Bible Engagement at Back to the Bible in partnership with Our Daily Bread Ministries called itself “one of the first studies to consider the relationships among spirituality, social media, and mental health.” 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. (For an excellent resource, please see Dr. Lane Ogden’s “What does the Bible say about mental health” on our website.) As a result, we’ll see a plethora of information like the Surgeon General’s report in the coming days. In the midst of all the bad news, however, here’s some good news: according to the Wall Street Journal, America is seeing a “surprising surge of faith among young people.”

A recent survey found that about one-third of eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds say they believe in the existence of a higher power. This is more than the percentage who doubt such an existence and is up from about one-quarter in 2021. The Journal explains: “Young adults, theologians, and church leaders attribute the increase in part to the need for people to believe in something beyond themselves after three years of loss.”

Recently, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt launched a Substack newsletter called After Babel to explore the cultural effects of social media which, he says, reminds him of the biblical account of the tower of Babel. Recorded in Genesis, the project seemed like a good idea at first but, in the end, “everything you built together has crumbled, and you can’t even talk together or work together to restore it.”

Haidt is convinced, as are others, that social media has fueled the exploding mental health crisis among teenagers, especially among adolescent girls.

“Rogue Worship Leader” says his Facebook account has been restored after claims of trademark infringement on the term “worship leader.”

We must remember that AI is not inherently evil. After all, if you go looking for funny animal videos, cooking tips, or sports highlights, it can fill your feed with content that brings happiness and laughter. But if you go with a darker purpose in mind, it can easily exacerbate those intentions as well. And those darker intentions have been around since humanity first left Eden. Ultimately, the problem with AI is the degree to which it makes feeding our sinful impulses so much simpler.

Millions of girls with instant access to our culture’s most viral (and dangerous) behaviors and beliefs are currently manifesting the results. Their sicknesses are a clear sign that our society is sick. In order to treat them and us, we’ll have to admit how the disease spreads, admit the connection between mental illness and gender confusion, and keep them away from clinics and smartphone apps where the disease is celebrated.