Social media algorithms expose many adolescents to self-harm content, study finds
Digital technologies have profoundly transformed how adolescents acquire information and interact with each other outside school. Numerous preteens and teenagers worldwide access social media platforms daily to read posts, view images, watch videos, post content and communicate with their friends.
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford has shed light on the extent to which adolescents are exposed to self-harm-related content on social media platforms. The findings, published in Nature Mental Health, suggest that one in three adolescents in England could encounter such content on these platforms, even if most of them never actively search for it.
The study, which analyzed data from a large-scale survey of over 32,000 adolescents aged 11 to 18 across England, aimed to shed light on the routes through which adolescents come across self-harm content and how they encounter it. The researchers found that exposure to self-harm content was common among the surveyed adolescents, with 34.5% of them reporting that they had encountered it online in the past month.
Moreover, three-quarters of these exposed students encountered the content through passive, unintentional routes, such as being online without actively searching for it. The study identified five distinct exposure pathways, with passive-only exposure being the most common. The researchers also noted that algorithms used by social media platforms may not adequately consider the psychosocial risks associated with the content they recommend to users, potentially compromising the well-being of adolescents.
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