When 'Just One More Scroll' Turns Dangerous
Compulsive social media use begins in childhood and increases in adolescence.
Posted November 18, 2025 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
A new study arrives amid growing concern about social media ’s role in the youth mental health crisis. While many recent studies have focused their attention on: How much screen time is too much?, Xiao and colleagues from Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University suggest that in addition to studying the impact of quantity of social media use, we need to look at the quality of engagement, and whether one’s relationship with social media also plays a vital role in driving mental health harms among children and youth.
They used the same data set as our last blog post , the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study , the largest long-term study on brain development and child health and mental health in the United States. This study gathered data from 4,285 U.S. children aged 10-15 years. Participants answered questionnaires about their mental health symptoms, and three digital platforms, social media, phones, and video games, were included in the analysis.
As this study followed the same children over a four-year period, the researchers were able to track how dependent the children became on screens, identifying distinct patterns for how compulsive screen use evolved over this time (i.e., low, increasingly, and high compulsive use). About one-third of participants developed increasingly compulsive relationships with social media or mobile phones between ages 10 and 15.
Compulsive screen use symptoms can include:
Notably, this study operationalized “addictive use” of screens based on compulsive engagement, loss of control, craving, and distress when not using, the same diagnostic symptoms seen in non-substance behavioural addictions such as gambling disorder .
Over the course of the study, the differences were striking. Compared to peers with low compulsive use:
Other interesting and important findings are that compared to low compulsive use, high compulsive social media use was more common in girls, while high compulsive video game use was more common in boys. Youth from households with an annual income less than $75,000 USD, unmarried parents, and parents with less than a bachelor’s degree were also at greater risk for high compulsive use groups.
It’s how young people use screens, in addition to how long
What does this mean in reality? One child might spend several hours a day on social media chatting with friends and feel OK, while another spends the same amount compulsively scrolling, unable to stop, and experiences emotional distress and withdrawal symptoms if prevented or restricted from use.
By using rigorous analyses, the researchers show longitudinal evidence that links patterns of compulsive screen use to suicidal thoughts and behaviours a few years later, even after accounting for baseline mental health and family background. The authors also emphasize the importance of early intervention and urge users not only to consider counting hours but also to consider whether their relationship with media has become unhealthy and reflective of media dependency or compulsive use.
Disclaimer: Dr. Goldfield has acted as an expert witness in the ongoing litigation involving social media companies.
Xiao, Y., Meng, Y., Brown, T. T., Keyes, K. M., & Mann, J. J. (2025). Addictive Screen Use Trajectories and Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health in US Youths. JAMA , 334 (3), 219–228. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.7829
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Gary Goldfield, PhD., C. Psych., is a Senior Scientist with the Healthy Active Living & Obesity (HALO) Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.