The scrolling generation: teenagers caught between likes and life’s realities
Young people scroll on their cellphones for on average almost four hours per day. Most of that time is spent on social media platforms. This generation of digital natives partakes in daily life through their smartphones, using them to communicate, look for entertainment, and information. These young people develop their identities through the mirror of their displays. They are practically never without their devices. In 2025, journalist Lisa Gadenstätter organized an experiment with students from the upper levels of an academic secondary school in Gänserndorf in Lower Austria to see what happens if teenagers have to do without their devices. The learnings were broadcast on TV in a documentary chronicling “Three weeks without a smartphone: an experiment”.
Three weeks without a smartphone: an experiment
Life without a smartphone for a whole three weeks. No TikTok, no Instagram, no chat groups. A radical break for the 69 students who participated in this experiment. What sounds like an educational project at first turned out to surprise the young people in various ways. They found that school breaks were calmer – but also livelier. Some teenagers started talking to each other again; others reached for books or spent time outdoors. Some began noticing things they had missed while their eyes had been glued to their screens. “I suddenly heard birds chirping again,” a student shares in the documentary.
Young People and Social Media
Kathrin Karsay researches the impact of digital media on young people, focusing on health, social media, and social communication. In her analyses, Karsay incorporates the perspectives of teenagers.
FWF Projects
Withdrawal symptoms
It certainly wasn’t easy for everybody to go without their cellphone. In the first days of the experiment, some teenagers reported experiencing unease, nervousness, and difficulties concentrating. In the end, 48 students made it to the end while 21 gave up before the three weeks were over. Some teachers even observed behaviors typical of withdrawal symptoms.
Media designed to keep us hooked
Kathrin Karsay, a communication researcher at the University of Vienna, is not surprised about these reactions. She points out that many digital platforms are in fact designed to keep users spellbound for as long as possible. “Many functions available on social media have the very purpose of constantly keeping users busy,” she says. “At the same time, we would be wrong to equate intensive use with addiction.”
New-found freedom
It only took several days for the troubling effects to disappear in many youths. For some of them, they were replaced by an unexpected feeling of freedom. They slept more soundly, spent more time with family or friends, and noticed how much time their smartphones take up in their everyday lives.
One thing that became very clear in the experiment was the extent to which digital media have become staples in many people’s lives. And also: how important it is to reflect on how much time we really spend consuming media.
Social media: orientation and feedback
It’s no longer just entertainment that teenagers are looking for on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Social media have become virtual meeting places, information sources, and a stage to present your own identity. Adolescence is a time in a person’s life when social orientation and feedback play major roles. Digital platforms provide this feedback in real time: likes, comments, and new follow requests are an immediate reflection of how contents are perceived. “For young people, a sense of belonging and receiving feedback are extremely important,” Karsay explains. “Social media offer the perfect infrastructure for that.” On the platforms, teenagers can assume different roles to see what fits, and they can become members of a community. This also gives rise to new forms of social dynamics. Visibility, reach, and approval can now be measured – and thus create a great deal of additional pressure.
Interactive use and scrolling
Social media, however, are a mixed bag. Researchers tend to distinguish interactive use from scrolling. Interactive use involves communication, for instance via the Messenger app or DMs. This can strengthen relationships and help people stay in touch. Scrolling is a different story: in this mode, feeds, short videos, or stories are passively consumed. This kind of social media use is particularly prone to keep people on platforms for long periods of time.
Don’t judge too quickly
Algorithms play an important role in this. They analyze what users are interested in and constantly present new contents matching their preferences as closely as possible. “Personalized feeds of this kind are very effective in trapping users’ attention,” the researcher says. “We are constantly shown contents that are tailored exactly to our interests.” But she also warns that we should not be too quick to judge. “Prolonged social media use does not automatically mean that this use is problematic,” she emphasizes. “The key here is whether this use negatively impacts other spheres of life, such as sleep, education, or relationships.”
Health-related posts: information and ads
In addition to entertainment, users increasingly consume social media to find information, particularly on topics related to health, fitness, and mental issues. Karsay has analyzed the ways in which young people aged 15-25 look up health topics on social media in the framework of a Citizen Science project headed by lead researcher Raffael Heiss of the University of Innsbruck and funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). In this participative project, more then 300 students aged between 12 and 19 collected data on well-known health influencers. Their results were mixed. For one thing, health contents can inspire users and motivate them to reflect on their own health habits. On the other hand, many influencers lack expert knowledge when it comes to health topics, pursue commercial objectives, or even propagate behaviors and products that can harm users. An example are dietary supplements that healthy people just don’t need.
Framing ads as a lifestyle
More than 40 percent of the young people surveyed trust influencers, and more than half buy products recommend by them. “Over 50 percent of the posts examined by the young people contained commercial content,” Karsay explains. But very often, it was not immediately apparent that they were ads. Products were presented as part of personal stories the influencers shared or framed as part of a lifestyle.
Health influencers have entered social feeds
The role of influencers should not be underestimated. Users often follow their recommendations because they are so frank about personal details and share their everyday life with their followers. “The trust placed in influencers cannot be compared to traditional expert knowledge,” Karsay explains. “For many young people, health influencers are part of their social feeds rather than figures in ad campaigns.”
Mental health: destigmatization and self-diagnoses
Especially when it comes to mental health, social media have helped foster conversations about topics that were considered taboo in the past. But also in this regard, it’s not all roses for the researcher. “Social media can help us overcome stigmas,” says Karsay, who is investigating the portrayal of mental health on social media in the framework of the FWF-funded multinational AWARE project. “At the same time, complex mental disorders are all too often oversimplified on digital platforms.” As a result, young people may check for potential symptoms they might have after watching a short explainer video online – and sometimes come to odd conclusions. “Clinical terms are increasingly used in fuzzy ways to describe everyday states of feeling, which affects self-perception and the decision to look for professional help.”
Red flags
So what should young people watch out for when they scroll through posts of health influencers? The researcher names the following red flags: lack of expertise, ads embedded in the post, excessive praise of a product or lifestyle, and unrealistic promises. For instance, “If you are told that you will lose 20 kilograms in two weeks or have a full set of hair overnight, you are right to think that’s too good to be true.” And what can we gain from health influencers? If you find that they inspire and motivate you to reflect on your own health behavior, it could definitely make sense to keep following them, Karsay says, pointing to some positive examples: “Some doctors share their expertise on social media, and some influencers encourage young people to exercise more without marrying this to questionable body images in the process.”
Body image in the digital sphere
A particularly tricky topic is how people perceive their own bodies. Pictures and videos that are heavily edited or that apply filters abound on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Some users watch hundreds of videos in a single TikTok session, and many of those contain idealized body images. “Knowing that pictures are edited unfortunately does not keep people from holding themselves to this standard,” Karsay says. “People will still compare themselves to what they see.” Such comparisons can lead to feelings of low self-worth and poor body image. As opposed to conventional ads, these images are viewed more than just occasionally. They are omnipresent in young people’s lives: on their way to school, in bed before they go to sleep, in their daily routines.
Political debates and age restrictions
Policymakers around the world have started to discuss potential restrictions on social media use to respond to these developments. In late 2025, social media were banned for users below the age of 16 in Australia. Various other countries are currently considering similar age limits or even bans for younger users. For Karsay, such measures require a nuanced look. “Bans can lower use times,” she says. “But they don’t automatically produce the desired effect.” And society itself is full of contradictions in this regard. In Austria, young people can vote from age 16, and frequently, it’s social media they consult to find out more about political topics. “Limiting access to platforms will also put a damper on searches for political information,” Karsay says.
The platforms’ responsibility
And finally, platform operators have come under scrutiny. Many functions available on social media are designed to keep users on the platforms for as long as possible. Infinite feeds, autoplay, and personalized recommendations keep the contents coming. “The systems have been consciously designed to draw people’s attention, making it extremely hard to stop,” Karsay says. “This is why we need more transparency about how algorithms work,” she says, adding that it would also be important for researchers to have better access to platform data to gain a more detailed understanding of the actual effects.
Media literacy instead of bans
Many researchers believe that literacy is the way to go. Media literacy is considered an important skill that enables young people to use digital platforms responsibly. “It’s not enough to have the technical solutions,” Karsay says. “Young people have to learn how to critically question content and spot commercial posts.” Schools share a responsibility in this regard. And the same goes for parents, who must discuss contents and experiences made in the digital sphere with their children. Strict bans have rarely made a difference in the long run. Karsay says that an open dialogue about contents and experiences is more effective and sustainable.
Research at the interface of science and society
For many years, Kathrin Karsay has investigated how digital media impact young people. She is particularly interested in contents related to health, social media, and social communication. Working with young people is a central pillar of her research, which is why she also considers their perspectives in her scientific analyses. “Research cannot be done in the ivory tower,” Karsay says. “It must be shared with society.”
Conscious reflection on digital media
The experiment in Gänserndorf eventually showed one thing: how much smartphones have become staples in our everyday lives, and how odd it feels to be without them. When the three weeks were over, many participants picked up their phones again. Yet many reported that they used them much more consciously. And maybe this is the key to increasing our well-being. It’s not about leaving all digital media behind for good but about using them more intentionally. Social networks are an integral part of young people’s lives. It’s not about whether they are used – but how.
About the researcher
Kathrin Karsay is an assistant professor (tenure track) at the University of Vienna’s Department of Communication. After completing her doctoral studies at the University of Vienna in 2018, she assumed postdoc positions in Vienna and at KU Leuven, where she was an Assistant Professor for health communication from 2021 to 2023. Her research is focused on how digital media impact the health, well-being, and identity of users, particularly teenagers and young adults. Together with her team, she is looking for strategies to use media in a conscious and healthy way, for instance by observing offline times and digital breaks. Her research has been published in leading journals, among them Media Psychology, Communication Research, Social Science & Medicine, and Telematics and Informatics.
She is currently the lead researcher in the multinational AWARE project (FWF/SNSF/DFG) dedicated to assessing the depiction of mental health on social media. Further FWF projects deal with health influencers and evidence-based social media policies.
