“A 2025 Deloitte consumer trends survey of more than 4,000 Brits found that nearly a quarter of all consumers had deleted a social media app in the previous 12 months, rising to nearly a third for Gen Zers.

Meanwhile, social media use has steadily declined since time spent on the platforms peaked in 2022, according to an analysis of the online habits of 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries by the Financial Times and digital audience insights firm GWI.

Globally, adults 16 and over spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms by the end of 2024, down almost 10% since 2022, the report found. The decline was particularly pronounced among teens and 20-somethings.”

From CNBC.

“Researchers at the University of Manchester followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their self-reported social media habits, gaming frequency and emotional difficulties to find out whether technology use genuinely predicted later mental health difficulties.

Participants were asked how much time on a normal weekday in term time they spent on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media, or gaming. They were also asked questions about their feelings, mood and wider mental health.

The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers’ symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year.

Increases in girls’ and boys’ social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year, the authors found. More time spent gaming also had a zero negative effect on pupils’ mental health.”

From The Guardian.

“College students’ reports of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts have continued to move in a positive direction, the third year in a row of such improvements since 2022, researchers have found.

The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study , conducted annually by researchers from UCLA, the University of Michigan, Boston University in Massachusetts, and Wayne State University in Michigan, under the leadership of the Healthy Minds Network based at Michigan, received responses from more than 84,000 students from 135 colleges and universities…

Key findings for students demonstrating improvement over time include:

• Moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms dropped from 44% in 2022 to 37% in 2025, while reports of severe depression decreased from 23% to 18%.
• Moderate-to-severe anxiety symptoms fell from 37% in 2022 to 32% in 2025.
• Students who seriously considered suicide in the past year dropped from 15% in 2022 to 11% in 2025.
• Students reporting high levels of loneliness decreased from 58% in 2022 to 52% in 2025.”

From UCLA Newsroom.

“The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday told Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to remove warnings about the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior from the labels of their blockbuster GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.

Why it matters: The action caps more than a year of studies into reported side effects in people taking the injectable drugs. It covers Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda and Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound.

Some research has focused on patients with psychiatric disorders, since certain antipsychotics or antidepressants are associated with weight gain and could make the patients possible candidates for GLP-1 treatment.

Driving the news: Regulators said a comprehensive review found no increased risk of suicidal ideation or behavior associated with the use of GLP-1s.”

From Axios.