Wake-up call: Landmark social media ruling exposes addictive algorithms as teen survey highlights dangers

A Colorado teenager is sounding the alarm on social media’s impact on young girls after surveying more than 1,000 peers nationwide and finding strong links between platform use and rising rates of anxiety, depression and sleep deprivation.

“I saw that social media was just a driving factor of all mental health issues, anxiety, depression,” 17-year-old Hallie Zilberman told Fox News on Sunday.

Zilberman surveyed over 1,000 teenage girls nationwide to better understand today’s mental health crisis. The results revealed some common contributors to negative mental health, one being social media, which prompted her to delete her own Snapchat and Instagram.

“I decided that I can have agency with my own life, and I can do what I can and make my own life better,” she said.

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Zilberman’s survey results detailed the swath of mental health struggles teen girls face in today’s world.

Approximately 60% reported frequently feeling overwhelmed, anxious or under pressure to be perfect. Nearly half reportedly considered self-harm in the past six months, while nearly 45% reported not feeling physically healthy and approximately 32% said they lacked a trusted adult they could consult.

“A lot of girls struggle with body image, and I saw that in my results, and I saw the struggles with body images tied to almost every single mental health outcome,” Zilberman shared.

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The data collected also indicated 52% of respondents were sleep-deprived – an issue Zilberman linked to late nights spent scrolling on social media.

That issue alone, she added, can contribute to a cascade of other problems.

“Sleep deprivation is also linked to higher stress, lower happiness, worse mental health overall,” she told “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Charlie Hurt.

“And when kids are staying up every night scrolling, that’s also a [negative] function of social media as well.”

Zilberman’s findings come as Silicon Valley faces a legal reckoning, after a landmark court decision found Meta and Google liable for designing features that contribute to compulsive use among young users.

Both tech giants have disputed the verdict and pledged to appeal.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson said shortly after the verdict.

José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, told FOX Business the company disagreed with the verdict and planned to appeal. 

“This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” he said.