British public tend to say harms of social media have outweighed the benefits

Most Britons have a negative view of social media companies

Key takeaways

• 43% of Britons say drawbacks of social media outweigh the benefits – twice the number who think the opposite (22%)
• 57% have a negative view of social media companies
• Nine in ten Britons say they use social media, with almost half wanting to cut back on their usage
• While the public overwhelmingly think social media has harmed children, they are more divided on adults

While much of the recent focus on social media has been on children, others point out that the harms of the medium are more widespread and affects adults as well – older Britons in particular are often cited specifically.

Now a new YouGov survey shows that while Britons overwhelmingly think social media has had a negative impact on children, the public are much more divided when it comes to adults.

Our survey also explores broader attitudes to social media, including whether the technology has done more damage than good, as well as people’s social media usage, and opinion of social media companies.

What impact do Britons think social media use has on children, older people, the average person, and themselves?

Asked how positive or negative they think social media usage is for children under the age of 16, fully 81% say “negative” – including 49% who say “very negative”.

By contrast, asked the same question about “an average person”, and the number who say negative drops to 43% (including only 9% for very negative). By contrast, 32% of Britons say the impact of social media use is neither positive nor negative for average people, while 21% see it as positive.

And when asked the impact of social media usage on older people, the number seeing it as positive rises to 27% - about the same as the 31% who consider the impact neutral and the 25% who see it as negative.

Older people themselves are even less inclined to think there has been a negative impact on their generation. Just 19% of the over-65s say social media usage has had a negative impact on their age group, with most instead seeing the impact as positive (31%) or neutral (37%).

This stands in contrast to the views of the youngest adults, with 18-24 year olds notably more likely to think social media has harmed the elderly (37%) than think it has benefitted them (21%).

When we asked Britons who use social media how they feel doing so had impacted themselves personally, the most common answer is that the effect has been neither positive nor negative, at 40%. The remainder are evenly split, with 27% thinking social media has generally had a positive impact on them, versus 27% who say it has been negative.

Older social media users are notably less likely to think the impact on them has been negative, at 14% of the over-65s compared to 32-34% of age groups under 50.

Has social media been worth the bother? More Britons say the drawbacks outweigh the benefits

As with any widespread society-changing technological developments, there are positives and negatives to social media. But on balance, do Britons think the good has outweighed the bad?

Overall, 43% of Britons say the drawbacks of social media have outweighed the benefits – including 18% who think they have “greatly” outweighed the benefits. This is almost twice the 22% who say the benefits of social media have outweighed the drawbacks, with a further 26% saying the benefits and drawbacks are about equal.

But are the negatives to social media inherent to the technology? Most Britons think they are not, with 64% saying that “social media is not fundamentally harmful to people if used properly and in moderation”. However, more than a quarter of Britons (28%) think that social media is fundamentally harmful to people, not matter how they try to use it.

How long do Britons spend on social media each day?

While many Britons recognise harms in social media use, only 9% of the public tell us that they don’t use social media at all.

More than four in ten Britons (44%) say they spend less than an hour on social media on an average day, with 19% saying they use it for 1-2 hours and another 12% scrolling or swiping for 2-3 hours. One in eight (13%) say they use social media for 3 hours or more on a daily basis.

As might be expected, usage differs greatly by age. Fully 38% of 18-24 year olds spend at least 3 hours in an average day on social media, a figure which falls to just 16% of the over-65s.

Do Britons want to use social media less?

While the vast majority of the population are on social media, many Britons wish they could reduce the amount of time they spend on these platforms. Almost half (46%) of those who ever use social media want to cut down on their social media usage, including 21% who want to spend “a lot less” time online in this way, and 6% who want to cut it out entirely.

The heaviest users are the most likely to want to cut back, with 67% of those who spend 3 hours or longer on social media on a typical day saying they want to cut back or go cold turkey.

By contrast, 44% of British social media users say they are happy with the amount of time they spend on social media. The lightest users are the most likely to be satisfied, with 66% of those saying they use it for less than half an hour each day saying they are happy with this amount of time – although even then, 31% of this group would still like to cut down on their usage!

Most Britons have an unfavourable view of social media companies

Social media companies are unpopular with the public, with 57% saying they have a negative view of such firms. Only 13% have a favourable opinion of these tech businesses, while 28% are neutral.

This ranks social media firms as only slightly less popular than utility companies (of whom 62% of Britons take a negative view), although significantly behind tobacco firms (whom 77% of Britons dislike).

Social media companies are widely disliked across the board, although 18-24 year olds and Reform UK voters are somewhat less likely to hold a negative view, at 44% and 46% respectively. By contrast, the Greens are much more likely to dislike these businesses (74%).

Such unpopularity is hardly surprising in the context of these wider results, and with previous YouGov research that has shown most Britons (59%) think current regulations on social media companies are too relaxed.

See full tables here

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Photo: Getty