Social media offers students a ‘lifeline’ in age of anxiety

Social media offers students a ‘lifeline’ in age of anxiety

Young people “see social media as a lifeline to social support,” says a new report from the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine. The study, “Youth Connections for Wellbeing,” encourages educators, mental health professionals and others to draw a line between healthy and unhealthy use of social media. The authors, Mimi Ito, Candice Odgers, and Stephen Schueller, also aim to redirect the debate over social media use and screen time toward how connections made online can help young people feel more confident and less lonely and depressed.