'Maybe it's just adolescence': Mum's alarm over son's secret social media life

Thursday, 21 May 2026

Auckland mum Camila Dixon initially felt her teenage son's declining mental health could be a normal adolescent struggle. She increasingly suspects it was the result of a social media addiction.

One New Zealand parent says they believe social media was at least partly responsible for their child’s depression, weight loss and sleeping problems.

Scientific evidence shows a correlation between social media use and poorer mental health in young people, and adolescents have found to be particularly vulnerable to addictive features on these platforms.

Some clinicians and scientists say there is enough evidence to regulate social media companies, and New Zealand could soon ban under-16s.

There is a significant, vocal group of scientists and clinicians who believe that social media is not safe enough for young people. Proving this has been difficult, but we have reached the point where some experts say we know enough to start regulating the tech giants. Isaac Davison reports.

Stuff is, this week, reporting in-depth on the need to regulate social media platforms who are not doing enough. You can read Editor-in-Chief Keith Lynch's oped here.

For Camila Dixon, the dam broke when her eldest son was 13 years old.

The mother of two, from Flat Bush in Auckland, had imposed a strict ban on social media in her household. But her son’s complaints about being left out of his social circle eventually led her to cave in and give him a smartphone.

Dixon used Instagram herself and felt it was relatively harmless. She also allowed her son to use Snapchat, a platform on which images and messages automatically disappear.

Gradually, her son retreated from the world, she told Stuff. His interest in sports and socialising waned. He went on his phone immediately after getting home from school and his parents struggled to get him to put it down.

The parents did not initially blame social media.

“I thought, okay, maybe this is just part of adolescence,” Dixon said.

Over about six months, her son became increasingly withdrawn, lost weight, and struggled to sleep. One day while he was at school, Dixon checked his phone and was disturbed by what she saw. Her son’s Instagram feed was much more sinister than her own: violent and pornographic images, videos with suicidal themes, and bullying messages. She later discovered he had been messaging on social media platforms through the night.

He was formally diagnosed with major depressive disorder. By now, Dixon was confident that social media was at least partially responsible for her son’s deteriorating mental health, or for worsening it. She specifically blamed the platforms’ highly addictive design and algorithms which appeared to push harmful content at a time when her son’s brain was still developing.

“It was too fast, too much, too soon,” she said.

In 2026, there is a significant, vocal group of scientists and clinicians who believe that social media is not safe enough for young people.

The evidence is nuanced. Social media is not inherently destructive for every young person and the impact varies depending on a child’s background and other factors.

Scientific studies show a correlation between social media use and poorer mental health in young people.

We cannot definitively say at this point that social media causes poorer mental health in young people, but a growing body of evidence shows a correlation. And the risk of harm escalates drastically based on a platform’s design features, the type of content and the degree to which it replaces sleep or physical connections.

“Increasingly, evidence is indicating there is reason to be concerned about the risk of harm social media use poses to children and adolescents,” the US Surgeon General wrote in a landmark report in 2023.

“Children and adolescents on social media are commonly exposed to extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content, and those who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

Time spent on social media is one indicator of potential harm. But the way kids use the platforms is also important. Compulsive, passive scrolling has strong associations with poorer outcomes, compared to messaging with friends.

Dixon was mystified by how difficult it was to get her son to pull himself away from social media sites. As studies have found, adolescents are uniquely susceptible to these platforms.

At this age, the part of the brain which is responsible for processing emotions and social rewards (the limbic system) matures quickly. The part of the brain which is responsible for impulse control and emotional regulation (prefrontal cortex) doesn’t mature until much later in life.

Dr Samantha Marsh, senior research fellow at the University of Auckland and member of the advocacy group B416.

Social media platforms activate the first part of the brain through algorithms and regular rewards, like continuous scrolling, “likes”, recommendations and notifications. At the same time, young people do not have a developed prefrontal cortex to act as a “brake”.

“Basically social media really targets and activates the emotional part of the brain and switches off the prefrontal cortex,” said Dr Samantha Marsh, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland, who specialises in child and youth wellbeing.

“Which is, you know, the part of the brain that would be like ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn't be doing this, maybe we should go and do other things’. The flow-on effects are less and less of the behaviors that we know are very good for them, like sleep and spending time in face-to-face communication and sport and things like that.”

In a blockbuster court case against Meta and Google in March, it was found that the companies knowingly created products which were highly addictive to adolescents.

Peer-reviewed studies have traced social media harm through other pathways. Social media use displaces sleep because of the blue light of smartphones and the stimulation of algorithmic feeds. Large-scale data studies have found there is a direct pipeline between heavy social media use and online harassment.

Some harms are particularly observed in young women. Exposure to idealised body types and comparisons with peers has been found to trigger or worsen body dissatisfaction and eating disorders.

Social media use can also replace essential offline, protective behaviours, especially physical exercise and hanging out with friends.

This theory has been promoted by Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation. His hugely influential work - which Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has cited - links an unprecedented decline in youth mental health with the sudden rise of the phone-based childhood.

Things are getting a little murky with the social media ban, here's what you need to know.

The catch is that all of these findings show a relationship between social media use and poorer youth mental health, but not a causal one.

There are caveats to most studies, too. It is difficult to isolate social media from other significant variables like family dynamics, socioeconomic status or predispositions to mental illness.

Many scientists, advocates and parents, however, have seen enough. They argue that there is sufficient evidence for governments to take a precautionary approach. And there is growing public support around the world for action.

Late last year, a collective of British clinicians argued that rather than waiting for definitive proof of harm, the burden of proof should shift to technology companies to demonstrate safety before allowing children access.

“Social media is not a benign part of modern life,” they wrote. “It is, in our experience, a potentially toxic and coercive space that children and young teens are more vulnerable to than at any other stage in their lives.”

Until now, the main response to concerns about social media has been to improve digital literacy. That policy alone was inadequate, they said.

The group called for social media to be banned for under-16-year-olds, stronger age-verification systems, public health campaigns, and parental guidance interventions. Adolescents should also be routinely screened for problematic social media use.

Australia was the first country to ban social media for under-16s last year, and New Zealand could soon follow.

Marsh, from the University of Auckland, is a member of an advocacy group B416, which has led calls for a similar ban in this country. She said that even if a ban did not have an immediate impact, it would begin to shift social norms around social media and would empower parents.

“At this point … I don't think we can ethically allow young people access to an addictive product that is shown to be harmful to them.”

Some were more sceptical about the proposed ban. Dr Alex Beattie, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, said he was strongly in favour of regulating social media.

Dixon is now navigating social media with her 14 year-old daughter, and has imposed strict limits like surveillance software.

“But adding an age restriction is low-hanging fruit,” he said. “It's something that's popular with voters, because the government can be seen trying to do something, but it's really asking young people to change more than more than the industry.”

He wanted governments to focus on regulating the harmful features of social media: the addictive features, algorithmic personalised news feeds, and surveillance of young peoples’ lives.

Opponents of a ban also point to the pockets of benefit in social media. For young people on the margins, especially gay and trans youth, or people with rare conditions, it can be a safe haven, a source of community support and a place where their identity is affirmed.

Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, declined to comment for this story. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been approached for comment.

Camila Dixon is now guiding her daughter, aged 14, through social media, trying to avoid the pitfalls that captured her son.

She has installed software on her daughter’s phone which alerts her to problematic conversations or media and cuts off social media after two hours. It was a constant struggle - her daughter was wary of the downsides of social media but also frustrated about having stricter rules than her friends.

Dixon said parents played a role in managing social media but could only do so much in the face of hugely powerful tech giants with highly sophisticated products.

“I feel for all of us parents at this moment that are going through this, it's probably been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do,” she said. “It needs to be a collective effort.”

This week Stuff is reporting in-depth on the proposed social media ban. Are you a parent, a teacher, or a teenager with a view? We want to hear from you about the harms of social media. Let us know what you think in the comments or you can provide a more expansive take in the Form below. We’ll publish a selection of the best comments.