Associations Between Social Media Use and Mental Disorders in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Evidence

The exponential growth of human interactions on social media via the internet has revolutionized global communication, but it has also emerged as a critical factor in mental health linked to suicidal ideation and mental disorders. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesize evidence on the most prevalent disorders in adolescents and young adults associated with social media use based on previous research, highlighting risk factors and key findings. Publications from 2020 to 2024 in highly relevant databases were reviewed following the PRISMA declaration guidelines. The meta-analysis (conducted in R software) of the included documents (24 studies, 68 effects) verified a significant and positive association between exposure to risk factors in social networks and various disorders in adolescents and young adults (aggregate correlation r = 0.2173, 95% CI [0.1826, 0.2520], p ≤ 0.0001), although with high heterogeneity (I2 = 99.66%). Prevention strategies were indicated by revealing data from contexts in which 40% of adolescents who died by suicide had developed online identities focused on suicidal thoughts.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Behavioral Science

• Publication date

  2025-10-24

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/bs15111450PMID 41301253PMCID 12649677
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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