Major new report on global trends in mental health, out today from Sapien Labs. Data from 2.5 million people across 85 countries. Some of the most important findings: 1) Young adults used to generally have good mental health, compared to older generations. But now, in ALL countries examined, they are doing badly compared to older generations in that country. 2) "Four key factors have emerged that together predict three quarters of this effect. These are diminished family bonds, diminished spirituality, smartphones at increasingly young age, and increasing consumption of ultra-processed food." 3) The decline of young people's mental health is "most pronounced in the wealthier and more developed countries." They note that it is in such countries that smartphones are given earliest, junk food is most heavily consumed, spirituality is most diminished, and family ties are looser and often weaker. 4) "A younger age of first smartphone ownership is associated with increased suicidal thoughts, aggression, and other problems in adulthood." 5) Here is their summary of findings on early smartphone ownership: "GenZ is the first generation to grow up with a smartphone. Among this group, the younger they acquired their first smartphone in childhood, the more likely they are to have struggles as adults. These struggles extend beyond sadness and anxiety to less discussed symptoms, such as a sense of being detached from reality, suicidal thoughts, and aggression towards others. The effects arise through disruption of sleep, increased risk of exposure to harmful online content, predators, and explicit material as well as increased probabilities of cyberbullying during crucial developmental years. Excessive time spent on smartphones also diminishes the development of social cognition that requires learned interpretation of facial expressions, body language, and group dynamics. The negative impacts are particularly sharp below age 13." The report is short, accessible, and important. Read it here: sapienlabs.org/global-mind-h…

There are now so many RCTs showing the mental health benefits of reducing social media use for at least a week. Here's a new one showing that young adults get LESS lonely when they reduce, even though their friends are not reducing. From Gary Goldfield et al. sciencedirect.com/science/ar… Social media does not give teens real community; it prevents them from spending time with real people. And, of course, Meta itself did an RCT, with similar results: metasinternalresearch.org/ Imagine how much loneliness would drop if an entire school, or community, or an entire generation, reduced or quit at the same time. Better yet, imagine how much less lonely, anxious, and depressed young people would be if social media was never invented, or if there had been an age limit of 16 when they were 10, so they did not all go through puberty spending 5 hours a day swiping and comparing, instead of hanging out with friends. Meta is facing survivor parents and a jury for the first time in its history this week, in Los Angeles. It will argue that the data is all correlational, and that nobody can prove causation. They have been saying this for years and it is demonstrably false. There are so many different lines of evidence demonstrating causation. Zach Rausch and I lay out seven lines of evidence here: osf.io/xsje9/files/hmf8e My two favorites, after the RCTs: Teens themselves say it has harmed their mental health, and employees of Meta, Snap, and TikTok discuss the many harms that their products cause, in emails and internal reports that leaked or were discovered. They know that they are harming children at an industrial scale. This is why so many countries around the world are now following Australia's bold move and raising the age for opening accounts to 16. 2026 will be a big year of change in the battle to reclaim childhood from big tech.