This March, a jury found that Meta and Google had deliberately designed their platforms to addict young users and had contributed to depression and anxiety in a young woman who compulsively used social media as a child, awarding her $6 million in damages. While the case is a stark reminder of the negative effects of social media on young people’s mental health, we also know from recent research that safe online communities and digital communities are critical lifelines for many of these same young people.
In a 2025 survey of 1,267 LGBTQ+ young people, Hopelab, a nonprofit advancing the mental health and well-being of young people, and the Born This Way Foundation found that 92% felt safe expressing their identity in online spaces compared to just 49% in person, and 56% felt very supported online versus only 13% in person, with many describing online friendships as lifesaving.
Despite these benefits, social media and screens are often discussed as the central issue in the youth mental health crisis — one in which nearly 40% of high school students reported persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2023, with suicide rates among 10-to-19-year-olds rising 85% over the past decade. This rhetoric is not only lazy but also dangerous and neglectful of other issues.
While unregulated screen time and poorly moderated social media do negatively affect young people’s mental health, blaming these things alone for their anxiety and depression ignores the troubling state of the world that young people are bearing witness to on their screens. It also ignores what’s happening offline, such as attacks on our fundamental rights to free speech, growing inequality, and a volatile economy with challenging job markets. For LGBTQ+ and other marginalized youth, this is exacerbated by political decisions that reduce their access to healthcare, crisis services, gender-affirming care, and other protections.
As a 27-year-old mental health advocate and social impact strategist who works with national youth-serving organizations and who participated in the inaugural Youth Mental Health Action Forum at The White House in 2022, I have heard repeatedly from young people who feel their leaders appear to ignore the issues that concern them the most, including some that we have organized around for years. According to a 2025 study by Blue Shield of California/Children Now, 85 percent of Gen Z youth cite gun violence and 81 percent cite climate change as major mental health stressors, compared to just 31% who expressed concern about social media. Likewise, economic precarity, affordability, and the incursion of AI are very real fears for today’s college graduates. Nearly 9 in 10 fear AI could replace entry-level jobs, up from 64% last year, according to Monster, while unemployment for 20- to 24-year-olds sits at 7.6%, well above the 4.3% national rate, according to CBS News.
But policymakers and pundits continue to ignore these young people’s needs. A recent example is the federally funded 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s specialized line for LGBTQ+ youth. Since 2022, it had fielded nearly 1.3 million calls, texts, and chats, with callers connected directly to trained Trevor Project counselors who offered affirming support that general crisis lines don’t always provide. Anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric meaningfully contributed to poor mental health and suicide risk among over 16,000 youth in the Trevor Project’s 2025 National Survey, which estimated that an LGBTQ+ youth attempts suicide once every 45 seconds. Despite this, the federal government last year eliminated this line and terminated The Trevor Project’s $26 million federal contract.
We have gotten to this point in part because too often, young people are not consulted about their needs. This must stop. Government entities, nonprofits, and private companies must bring in young people to co-create the research, resources, programs, and policies that affect them. Young people are occasionally appointed to advisory boards or asked to speak on panels about youth wellbeing, but this is not enough. Nonprofits and companies that purport to help young people and their families must update their bylaws to require a percentage, if not all, board members to be below 30 years of age.
There is precedent for this: Youth MOVE National, a youth leadership and advocacy organization where I sit on the board of directors, requires that 75% of their board of directors be under the age of 30. The Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund goes even further by paying young people to serve on review committees that determine which youth-led ideas get funded. At Active Minds, a leading national mental health nonprofit, a high school youth advisory board advised staff on what resources they need in their schools and communities. Those recommendations now live on the Your Voices, Your Power Resource Hub where over 1,000 K-12 schools can access them.
A 2023 report in Obesity Reviews on the CO-CREATE framework, a European public health initiative that partnered directly with young people aged 16-18 to co-design obesity prevention policy across five countries, found that youth co-creation produces more effective interventions and leads to more successful policy outcomes. A UNICEF/TDR meta-analysis of 112 studies found that youth co-created health interventions were associated with significant reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms compared to interventions designed without youth input. And the benefits aren’t evenly distributed: youth engagement especially improves outcomes for marginalized young people.
Some may argue that young people lack the experience to provide strategic input, but lived experience is expertise. We don’t have to choose between online and offline, or youth voices and adult expertise. The answer is to move towards ensuring youth voice has both presence and decision-making power.
So don’t just ask the young person in your life or at your workplace what they need. Whether you are a nonprofit leader, a funder, or a policymaker, start by rewriting your bylaws to require youth board members with real voting power. Establish formal, paid youth working groups, not one-off consultations. Don’t just build for young people, build with them.