On Tuesday 28 January, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality held a hearing on the impact of social networks on the mental health of young girls. The aim was to identify the problems posed by digital platforms for young generations of women, and to find solutions to the pressures they face.
“Social media has become a mirror in which everyone compares themselves. Young people aged 10 or 12 are living in an atmosphere of anxiety”, warned Joanne Sweeney, CEO of the digital marketing agency Digital Training Institute Ireland.
While 96% of young people in the European Union use the Internet every day, making it their primary source of information and validation, as the expert pointed out, this quest for validation, fuelled by algorithms, has a harmful influence on young girls’ self-perceptions.
The founder of the ‘Shona Project’, an Irish charity dedicated to the education and empowerment of young girls, Tammy Darcy, corroborated these statements, indicating, on the basis of her research, that “70% of young girls feel that social networks have a negative impact on their mental health, exacerbating body image and self-esteem issues”.
And with good reason, as content creator and self-acceptance advocate Martyna Kaczmarek explains, unrealistic standards of beauty are set as role models on social networks and young girls continue to compare themselves to retouched images, despite warnings about their modification.
According to Tammy Darcy, more education about masculinity, the source of many of these pressures, and greater regulation of advertising targeting young girls’ insecurities would form the basis of a solid response.
During the discussions with MEPs, Eleonora Meletti (EPP, Greek) stressed the link between mental health and education: “We need to promote a solid educational structure to support their well-being”.
Marko Vešligaj (S&D, Croatian), for his part, criticised the major platforms and their owners and asked how to take action “to guarantee the safety of young girls and women” when faced with people who encourage harassment, referring to the problematic stances taken by Donald Trump’s supporters in recent weeks.
Emma Rafowicz (Greens/EFA) highlighted the destructive impact of filters and hyper-sexualised content.
The French MEP also called for collective responsibility to pursue investigations into TikTok, Meta and X, saying that since “14 million young Europeans suffer from mental disorders”, “now is not the time for calm, but for a collective awakening”.
All the speakers agreed that policy-makers, educators, parents, technology companies and civil society must work together to offer young girls a healthier digital future.
Indeed, as Joanne Sweeney has said, social networks are not going to disappear, but their impact and design must become a collective responsibility. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)