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Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
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Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Hot topic. Hello and welcome to the neurospicy news.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Hot topic news, news, spicy news in the news today. Study links children's social media use with anxiety and depression in teenage years. This isn't news to me.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Well, it's. It is. It is. Monday 23rd, 2026 is when the story came out years ago. They've just figured this out. Phones are bad for kids. You don't beckon, say, I like that. I mean, who's spending money on this research?
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Not me. So this comes from a research that's being quoted in a Guardian article. And I quote. Children who are on social media for more than three hours a day are more likely to develop depression and anxiety as teenagers, according to research. Experts said the impact was likely to be linked to a lack of sleep caused by social media late at night and that the link to depression was more pronounced in girls. Researchers at Imperial College London analyzed data from a study of cognition, adolescents and mobile phones set up in 2014, based on responses from 2,350 children at 31 schools across London. The school children twice took cognitive tests and completed a questionnaire on digital behaviors, mental health and lifestyles. First to them when they were between 11 and 12, and again when they were between 13 and 15. The analysis found children who spent more than three hours a day on social media were more likely to have symptoms of anxiety and depression as teenagers, compared with Those who spent 30 minutes online each day. The researchers suggest this could be down to those who use social media more going to sleep later and having less sleep overall, particularly on school nights.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, see, I, I would put immediately, I'd be like, okay, lack of sleep is very, very bad. I can attest to that. Yep, it is. It is very, very prevalent in neurodivergent people, you know, especially us hyperactive ones and our hyperactive brains. So linking this just to phones seems bit of a stretch, but I don't disagree, I don't disagree with this. I think that one, I don't know any kid that's only on their phone for 30 minutes a day.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, I was about to say, who are these children and where are they? Because I know him.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
I'm like, and the ones that are on for three hours, I'm like, was that the first three hours or was that the last three hours out of your. Probably 10 hours a day. But again, if this is what the study says. This is what the study says. I think that it is. It's a long study. I, you know, it's been going since 2014. I think it is I think we're already at the point where it's like, yeah, but obviously. But also I would say that when it comes to social media, I would say the actual social media itself is making kids depressed because it depends on the content which they're consuming. You can't just put it down to a lack of sleep and say that's making them depressed. Well, I don't know if you've seen the state of the fucking world since 2014, but you know, we did have Covid in that. It's a big, big factor. That Covid and lockdown also could have resulted in an entire generation of children who becoming depressed as teenagers.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah. Something else to also change into this as well. In 2014-2018, Tick Tock didn't exist. The way that social media worked was very different. There was a lot more social posts where people weren't using trends. If there was something like Vine. Yeah, but there were only seven second videos that would use trends based around like meme culture. But Instagram and Facebook back in those days was more talking about what you were doing to show your friends less about selling something to the world. And people weren't building brands around themselves on social media like they are now. And another thing to take into account as well, and it was something that I've discussed on a previous episode, is that the social media that I was seeing in 2014 as a 20 year old is very, very different from what's on social media now in that I would be on a corner of the Internet that people two, three, four years older than me weren't on. Whereas now people that are 8, 9, 10 years old that are going on TikTok are seeing what's happening in Iran, they're seeing what's happening in Ukraine, they're seeing what's happening in Palestine, just like I am. There is no filter. And if people say there is a filter, they're bullshitting you. There is no filter. And on top of that as well, the algorithm cannot differentiate how old people are on it because they sign up to it with an account and it goes, what's your date of birth? And nobody actually puts their own fucking age. They'll go, I'm 25. So that they get all the unrestricted stuff when really they're 10, 12 years old and the algorithm does not know what they are. If you're a teenage girl who's looking at a picture of a post that makes you feel bad or makes you feel fat or ugly or whatever, very likely the next ad that you're going to see is going to be for a makeup product that one, you don't need and two, you can't afford and now you feel like you're going to be ugly unless you have this 30 pound foundation from Boots. What a dangerous cycle this is.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
I think this is. The problem with a lot of science is that it does want to just simplify things. You, you can't just, it's, you can't just say it's sleep. I mean that's, that's wild to just be like, oh, it's because of lack of sleep because a lot of these kids were using it late at night. Okay. But a lot of kids struggle with sleep anyway. And now again, I'm not saying that people who lack sleep get depressed, that is definitely a thing. But just to be like, it's this one thing, it's the content. For me, I look at it and, and I didn't do a 12 year study. I don't, you don't need to. I, I've, you, I've done my own study. For 12 years I've been looking at social media. I've seen it with my kids and, and, and, and I've made sure that you know, that I've policed because you know, when they're young that's what you have to, you've got police the content which they're, which they're, they're looking at. And, and I've seen the, the negative effects, especially with Sophie, especially my daughter. I've seen those negative effects even to the point where she herself decided to actually delete all her social media accounts. She never has ever had TikTok, ever. She never even downloaded it. Same for in fact everyone in this house. The only time I ever see TikTok is when Sylvia's on Facebook and it's a TikTok video on Facebook that she's scrolling by. None of us have TikTok. It's incredibly invasive. It's really, you really just shouldn't have it on your phone. Then if you've read those terms and conditions, but those terms and conditions aren't favorable to you or what they're looking at and digging into your phone. But that aside, you have to make sure that if you are going to allow your 8 to 10 year old to use social media, which I think is outrageous, make sure you know what they're watching. Be, be the grown up. Because kids, kids aren't going to be the grown up. There'll be Kevin home alone. Let's eat sweeties for dinner. Yeah, you know.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Oh, I do know. Yeah. So further into the article, it says earlier this month, the government in the UK launched a consultation to gather views on measures to protect children online, which could include a partial social media ban for under 16s. That's ironic with the way that the government behaves around racial abuse or just any abuse on social media. They go, oh, it's down to the companies and now suddenly they care when the children get invol. Ironic. Last year, Australia became the first country to ban under 16s from using social media. The accounts of 4.7 million young people were deactivated, removed or restricted within the first few days of the ban coming into force in December. Now Australia is becoming very progressive in the way that it's tackling future endeavors for people. It's got probably one of the best growing art scenes in the world because of how much the government funds into youth programs based around art and expression and the fact that they're also tackling social media as well. What amazes me, dude, is this is a 12 year study from one of the top universities in this country. By the time that they've even gathered data, the data has changed because of how quickly the algorithm and trends and just social media in general is evolving. Why are they spending so much time and money on this? In something you and I figured out in five minutes, like, could they not put their resources into something that we, we don't know about? Like, it's so obvious to me, like if you walk around a supermarket and you see a child holding an iPad at 2 years old, probably not going to have a great relationship with social media and technology by the time they're a teenager.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, yeah. Let's have a break and we will discuss that exact thing when we come back.
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Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Welcome back to the Neurodivergent Experience. This is your hot topic for this week. We have been discussing an article in the Guardian that states a study links children's social media use with anxiety and depression in teenage years. This is a study that has, as we said previously before the break, has been going on for about 12 years. But my opinion, I, I figured this out without having to have a 12 year study. It seems pretty obvious to me.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, I mean, 2014, like you said, we didn't have the, the issues that we have now. I certainly think that social media has, you know, got so much more toxic. The algorithms have got so much more intrusive to, to reading literally everything. We didn't have the algorithms and the AI that they did in 2014. So I could understand why the, why the study happened in the first place. And I'm not knocking the fact that they did the study. I'm knocking on the fact that. Well, hold on. Does the person who is the professor. Professor Toledano? Yeah, Excuse my dyslexia. Miriella Toledano, Principal Investigator for the research and Chair of Imperial's Mon center for Children's Health and Wellbeing. Fabulous title. Well done. Good for you. The problem with titles is it doesn't entitle you to think that you know everything and to turn around and go. Children who use social media apps for longer and later into the evening may be offsetting the sleep they need to function healthily. I don't disagree with that. We think this is the key reason we're seeing a lasting impact on their mental health down the line. I disagree with that. Like I said in the first half and I just, I don't think this is helpful now because it's not telling us anything that I think that we hadn't already figured out for ourselves. I think what we need to look at now is how the, the individual apps, not just social media in general, but the individual apps, how they are negatively affecting your children. Because we've seen it with the red pill, manosphere bollocks. Andrew Tate's. Most of his followers are young kid. Young boys. Young boys, not older guys.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
12, 13, 14.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Exactly. And, and he literally is, he's just a con man. Like all of these manosphere morons are just con men. But we also see it with, with left wing content, right wing content. It's all there to make you feel bad. It is, it's. I mean, in my. I'm liberal, but what I get is I get liberal people just showing me how terrible right wing people are. And, and it's, it's just that trigger effect. Everything is about triggering. And it was really interesting when I was watching the manosphere thing with Louis Theroux, his interview. The, the guys that were being interviewed, they weren't necessarily believing the, that they said about, you know, women and this and blah, blah, blah, toxic masculinity. A lot of them actually didn't really believe it. They were saying it because they knew it would get views because they, it was clickbait. It's all, this is all click. Everything is clickbait. Everything is clickbait. And I've seen it on, on my posts. If I do a lovely, happy, pretty nice post, me, not a lot of, not a lot of engagement. If, if I do any post about any controversial subject. I literally did a post about, I swear. And I didn't do it about the baftas. I didn't do it about the baftas at all. I just did it about, oh, I love this movie. I'm. I really love this movie. And it, and it absolutely skyrocketed. And obviously it's because of the BAFTA situation, because it's controversial, because everybody's talking about it. It's the trigger effect. Everyone wants to be triggered. And how is being triggered every single day not the cause of depression?
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
And especially when you're on social media a lot younger than we were, like,
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
you can't deal with that trigger.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
I, Dude, I'm struggling going through my feed and seeing everything from Nigel Farage to Zach Polanski to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump to Iran to Ukraine to Taiwan to Palestine to everything that's going on in the world. I find it stressful. I'm 32 years old. I find it stressful. It freaks me out when I'm reading about the stock market and how interest rates are going to go up and down and how mortgage rates are going to go up and down. I'm like, oh, that's a lot to process in just scrolling for the next 10 minutes and trying to come down from that in the next hour. I'm not 7 years old or 8 years old or 10 years old or 14 years old reading this stuff. When I was 10 years old or 14 years old, I was watching videos of people showing their top five goals on FIFA. I wasn't watching people discussing how men, that women have not ever done anything that contributed to society whatsoever. Like, it's crazy the amount of content that, that people that are 11, 10, you know, those ages have access to.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, I was collecting garbage pail stickers. You know, I was, I was a kid being a kid. These kids are being forced into a grown up world way before they're cognitively ready.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
I was on that plane and from Italy the other week and I'm there on my phone reading the Athletic, looking at sports articles and I'm reading Reddit and the kid to the left of me was scrolling through TikTok and it was Trump, it was Hegseth, it was Netanyahu, it was Farage. And I was just like, what the fuck? I'm like, he's seeing more intense shit than I do because I've nuked my algorithm. I'm constantly going, not interested. This post made me uncomfortable. Not interested.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
People dancing. That's what it was supposed to be.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Not anymore, dude. Literally. Karis works in Boots, right? She's a senior manager at Boots, working in the make, the premium makeup department. And they are constantly bringing in new counters and getting rid of old counters so quickly they can't keep up with the trends. Like, they'll put. I think there's a company that was called like Bear Elephant or something like that. It's collagen. It's things that like people that are entering their 30s would be using like intense, like acidic chemicals that people put on their faces for youth. All of these brands are blowing up on Tick Tock and she said they've got 13 year old girls that are coming in asking for collagen.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Oh my.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
And they're all asking for like anti wrinkle cream and things like that. And she's like, there's kids that are turning 18 that are getting Botox, like straight away.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Sylvia works in the beauty industry. She, she's been dealing with that.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
But the thing is, dude, is like, if kids are on iPads from 2, 3, 4 years old, it's like parents don't have to stop their kids crying, just give them a iPad. Like you are building parasocial relationships with people online rather than relationships with people in the real world. People that are like 10, 11, 12 years old will have closer relationships with people like Andrew Tate online than they will their own fathers because they're not conversing with each other. It's fucked up. It's scary because.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
And it's doubly bad for neurodivergent people because it's so evil.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Easily influenced. And then we're getting monotropic flows where you're doom scrolling and the information you're getting is disregulating you. I mean, dude, I go on Instagram for an hour and I come off it and I feel like I've been hit over the head. I'm just like, where am I?
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
See, I've. I've made my Instagram. I've barely gone my Instagram. I never really post on it anymore, but I've made my Instagram. The algorithm is. And this, this is all there is photography. So nice pity pictures like landscape photography to inspire me to go to different places and basketball and trainers. That, that is my algorithm. As I scroll, that is all I see. I don't see anything else because I've never used Instagram to look at anything else. So even when you go to that search thing, you know, I press on, search all the recommendeds underneath. It's. It's just basketball players and basketball content. And I'm like, Instagram is actually my safe space. So you can actually create social media in order to do what it, it can do, which is make you feel good. This is the thing about all of these things. If you go to a shop and you buy a donut, it's good and it can help your mental health. Having that nice sweet treat. If you go to the shop and you buy a box of 12 and you eat all of them, one, you'll make yourself sick to. You'll be really depressed because you ate so much and you'll feel sluggish and slow and tired because that food is not good for you. You can't live on donuts, but a nice donut every now and again is good for your mental health.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Donut.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, me too. But that's the thing. If you use social media into the things that you are interested in and fun things like Tick Tock was for dancing, for comedy, but not now. This is the thing. This is what this study's not saying is it's not one parents are going to look at this. And they'll go, okay, so I shouldn't give my kid, allow my kid to use social media late at night? Well, duh, I mean kids, I've said that for years. You don't let kids watch TV at 11 o' clock at night. Put them to bed at 8 o' clock like they should be at 8 years old.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
You know, don't give them a phone, don't give them any screen time. Forget like social media, any screen time. It's, it's over. Stimulating. You have to relax before you go to sleep. We've had this with, you know, our episodes on sleep. We need to do another one of those. But we'll do that next if, if parents would be like, oh, we'll, we'll let them use it during the. They're still going to end up being depressed.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
And it ain't going to take 12 years for it to happen. It's going to take 12 fricking hours. Because if I sat looking at my phone for 12 hours and my algorithm is freaking red pill bullshit content. I would end up wanting to fucking to be depressed or I would end up angry at the world. Triggered, pissed off.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? Because you want people to be social. But I don't think it's social media anymore. I was reading an article only the other day saying how content creators and people that work for big companies are no longer treating social media like social media, they're treating it as interest media. It's not a way to be social. It's a way to follow your interests and follow the trends based around your interests and depending on who talks about your interest is how you influence people. So the whole red pill thing, if people are interested in what's happening in Iran or like women's rights or anything like that. If you watch a women's rights video through a red pill manosphere content creator, that's how you influence them through social media based around interest media.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
That is. That is fascinating. I did not know that, dude. That's fascinating. So from a parent to our listeners with this. Yes, sleep is very, very important. But what your child is consuming on their phone is far more important to police. It's all important. Just watch your kids be involved with their lives and take an interest and be a good person and lead by example.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Well said, my friend. Well, this has been your hot topic for this week. I would love to hear your opinions on this, especially if you're a parent who, who has a child that is a Doom Scroller would really love to hear what your thoughts on this are. Well, we will be back next Thursday with your neurodivergent Experience episode. Maybe we'll do sleep. I think that would be a good place to go. A hot topic to follow on a Friday. And of course, if you've listened to this episode and you're as stressed out or as wound up as I am, go and listen to Ashley Dupree's Mindful Monday Start Week with Purpose. It's brilliant series and I find it extremely helpful. I hope you do too. Take care of yourself. Be kind out there. Watch what your kids are watching. Bye everybody nightly.
Host 2 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Bye.
Host 1 (Neurodivergent Experience)
Thanks for tuning in to the neurodivergent Experience. We hope today's episode sparks something for you. Whether it's a new idea, a bit of validation, or just a moment of connection. Remember, new episodes are every week, so be sure to join us for the next one for more conversations and insights into the neurodivergent Experience. If you've enjoyed this podcast, help us grow. You can do that by rating and reviewing this show. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. You can connect with us on social media, find us on Instagram, Facebook, Tick tock. Just search for the neurodivergent Experience. Thank you again for listening and until next time, take care of yourself. You're not alone in this journey.
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Episode: Hot Topic: Social Media & Teen Depression — Is It More Than Just Sleep?
Hosts: Jordan James & Simon Scott
Date: April 9, 2026
In this candid and energetic "hot topic" installment, hosts Jordan and Simon dissect a recent Guardian article summarizing research from Imperial College London that links heavy social media use in childhood to depression and anxiety in teenage years. The hosts push back against the idea that it's just about lost sleep, scrutinizing how content streams, algorithms, parental involvement, and broader world events intersect with mental health — especially for neurodivergent youth.
Jordan and Simon deliver a passionate critique of simplistic narratives around social media and youth depression, offering lived parental and neurodivergent perspectives. Their core message: Over-monitoring sleep misses the bigger picture. The real issues are the content, the algorithms, the absence of robust age filtering, and the need for adult guidance — especially for neurodivergent kids uniquely vulnerable to information overload and emotional distress.
“What your child is consuming on their phone is far more important to police.”
— Simon ([25:33])
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