Member

Mental health problems are complicated and multifactorial, and it is very easy for academics to look at population data and say that social media is just one of a number of factors causing the dramatic rise in mental health problems. But these clinicians in the room were not describing data points or research subjects; they were describing real young people who had suffered direct, incontrovertible harm. They knew their names, they knew their families and they bore witness to the trauma and the distress. And as in so many other situations, disadvantaged children and those who were neurodiverse were felt to be at the greatest risk.