According to CNBC, a 2025 poll from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan has laid bare what parents really fear. The survey, released in August, found that 69% of parents think the physical health of American children and teens is getting worse. Even more striking, 83% believe kids’ mental health is also on the decline. Parents specifically ranked social media, too much screen time, and internet safety as some of the top health concerns for their kids right now. The report explicitly links the rise in youth mental health problems—like depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts—to the increased use of social media starting around 2010, a trend that continued through the pandemic.
The Alarm Is Blaring
Here’s the thing: this isn’t just a bunch of worried parents guessing. The data is aligning with a chorus of experts who’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years. Social scientist Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation,” is a central figure here, and he’s not mincing words. He points out that the average kid’s screen time is a staggering eight to ten hours a day, not including schoolwork. These devices, he argues, are engineered to keep kids scrolling indefinitely. And the poll results suggest parents are finally, viscerally, connecting those dots. When 83% of a group agrees on something as broad as “mental health is declining,” you know we’ve hit a cultural nerve.
So What Comes Next?
Now, the big question: is this just more hand-wringing, or will it actually lead to change? The trajectory seems to be shifting from pure awareness to actionable advice. Haidt and psychologists like Jean Twenge are pushing concrete recommendations for parents to be more intentional about pulling back device use. We’re moving past the “screen time is bad” phase and into the “here’s how to fight it” phase. But let’s be real. Rolling back an average of 8-10 hours is a monumental task. It’s not just about setting limits; it’s about battling an entire economic model built on attention capture. I think we’ll see this concern fuel more legislative pushes for age limits and platform design changes, but the real battleground is in millions of living rooms every night. The parental guilt is officially codified by data, and that’s a powerful motivator.
