Social Media Warnings Could Discourage Use Among Teens, Young Adults

TUESDAY, Sept. 8, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Warnings on social media platforms could discourage teenagers and young adults from wanting to use social media, according to a study published online Sept. 4 in JAMA Health Forum.

Anna H. Grummon, Ph.D., from Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues examined whether social media warnings discouraged social media use among teenagers and young adults. The analysis included 1,012 participants (aged 13 to 29 years) who were randomly shown 15 messages (13 health warnings about different harms [e.g., negative body image and depression and anxiety], a screentime break warning similar to messages voluntarily displayed on some social media platforms, and a neutral control message).

The researchers found that participants perceived all health warnings, as well as the screentime break warning, as more effective than the control message (range of average differential effects [ADEs], 0.32 to 0.62), but they perceived the health warnings as more effective than the screentime break warning (range of ADEs, 0.16 to 0.30). The only exception was for the health warning about addiction (ADE, 0.07). Compared with the control message, participants perceived all warnings as increasing their awareness of the harms of social media more (range of ADEs, 0.19 to 0.63), with all health warnings increasing their awareness more than the screentime break warning (range of ADEs, 0.21 to 0.44).

“With substances like tobacco and alcohol, we find, on average, that well-designed warning labels change behavior,” Grummon said in a statement. “Social media laws are written so that these warnings are basically pop-ups. We need to find out more about how that changes behavior.”

Abstract/Full Text