Did Netflix’s Adolescence change how the media reports on teen social media use?

When Netflix released Adolescence in March 2025, it quickly became much more than just your average television show. Not only did the four-part limited series sweep multiple award ceremonies, but it dominated news headlines for weeks and prompted widespread discussion across the UK about toxic masculinity, violence against women and girls, and online safety.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, Adolescence centres around a seemingly ordinary family whose home is raided by police, resulting in their 13-year-old son being arrested on suspicion of murdering his female classmate. Investigations reveal that he has been a victim of cyberbullying on social media, and that he has also been engaging with content from the manosphere. The manosphere refers to a network of online communities focused on men’s rights, who promote misogyny, hyper-masculine ideals, and oppose feminism (Over et al., 2025a). The manosphere is particularly concerning due to its influence with younger, vulnerable audiences, and the potential to incite hate, violence and discrimination (Milne & Baker, 2025; Over et al., 2025b).

Given increasing discussions about young people’s safety, particularly online, Bond and colleagues (2026) were curious to explore the impact of Adolescence on how the news media reports on young people’s social media use. As the authors highlight,

News media reporting does more than convey information; it contributes to shaping public perceptions and can play a role in social change, sometimes in ways that are both substantial and far-reaching.

So, what has been the impact of Adolescence?

Methods

The authors conducted a mixed-methods content analysis of online news articles published by 10 major UK and Irish news organisations, including a mixture of broadsheets (e.g., The Guardian) and tabloids (e.g., Daily Mail). They systematically searched news websites using key terms relating to social media and young people and included articles if they were published 90-days pre-Adolescence airing or 90-days post-Adolescence airing.

Identified articles were coded using a structured framework that examined different features of an article, including:

• Overall tone towards young people’s social media use
• Author gender
• Whether reporting was reassuring, balanced or alarmist
• If recommendations were explicitly linked to an evidence base
• References to toxic masculinity, incel culture, the manosphere, or related concepts
• Mention of vulnerable or at-risk groups
• Responsibility attributed to governments, parents, schools and technology companies
• Whether articles discussed positive aspects of social media.

Two researchers double-screened 10% of the included articles, with moderate-to-substantial agreement on important variables.

Finally, a reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken on personal narratives and quoted accounts within identified articles to examine how journalists used individual stories to frame discussions about online harms.

Results

Media coverage on young people’s social media use substantially increased after Adolescence was released. A total of 360 relevant articles were identified; 121 were published in the 90 days pre-Adolescence, and 239 were published afterwards. This increase was particularly marked in the UK (92 articles vs 193 articles) compared to Ireland (29 articles vs 46 articles), where The Guardian and The Independent were the largest contributors.

Most articles were written by women (50.6%) rather than men, and journalists (89.4%) rather than non-journalists, like academics or clinicians. The most common topic was young people’s social media use (31.4%), followed by online safety (26.9%) and toxic masculinity (18.6%).

Several changes in reporting accompanied this increased post-release media coverage, including:

• A shift in focus from social media use and online safety to toxic masculinity and violence against women and girls
• Significantly more negative coverage
• A higher proportion of alarmist articles and fewer balanced ones
• More references to vulnerable and at-risk groups
• Recommendations centring around restriction, such as phone bans (although no articles linked these recommendations to identifiable evidence)
• Less responsibility being placed on social media companies, and more responsibility placed on parents and schools (in Ireland)
• More personal stories, which were more likely to reference incel culture or toxic masculinity.

Qualitative analysis generated five themes based on personal narratives from young people, parents, teachers, clinicians, and policymakers:

1. Addiction and time drain; “You see everyone picking up their phones every five to ten minutes.”
2. Exposure to harm and radicalisation; “I have had boys refuse to speak to me … because I am a woman and they follow Andrew Tate … These were 10-year-olds.”
3. Parental dilemmas, regulation and responsibility; “We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place … If you don’t give your child [a phone], you risk them being the odd one out.”
4. Coping and resilience strategies; “I’ll turn my comments off so people can’t comment on me.”
5. Negative impact of social media, parental bereavement and calls for change; “Every day the government has delayed… more young lives lost.”

Conclusions

Bond and colleagues conclude that the release of Adolescence coincided with important changes in UK and Irish media reporting about young people’s social media use. During the 90 days after Adolescence’s release, coverage became more frequent, more negative, and more likely to focus on toxic masculinity, vulnerability and online harms, whereas the positive aspects of young people’s digital lives remained largely absent.

The authors note that this isn’t the first time a Netflix show has had such a big impact on public discourse, citing 13 Reasons Why (read Angharad, Alys and Stanley’s Mental Elf blog on this topic here). They emphasise that:

The extensive media coverage surrounding both Adolescence and 13 Reasons Why may have the potential to act as a positive force […] if it prompts open discussion of complex and often hidden issues, including suicide, toxic masculinity, misogyny and online safety […] However, as seen previously with 13 Reasons Why, the media communication and coverage also carry risks […] overly emotive or prescriptive reporting may distort public understanding and contribute to reactive rather than evidence-informed responses to complex mental health and social issues.

Strengths and limitations

There are many strengths to this study, including its mixed methods design. By combining quantitative content analysis with qualitative thematic analysis, the researchers were able to describe not only how media coverage changed after Adolescence, but also what was being said and how these narratives might relate to the observed change. This provides a richer understanding than either approach alone. The use of a systematic, predefined coding framework is another strength, as it means that the included articles were assessed (relatively) consistently, which increases the transparency and reproducibility of the study. Furthermore, including major news outlets from both the UK and Ireland broadens the study’s relevance and allows comparison across two media landscapes, rather than drawing conclusions from a single country’s reporting.

However, there are also several limitations:

• The comparison only covers a short period of time pre- and post-release of Adolescence, which makes it difficult to know whether this was a one-off event or part of a longer-term trend. It would be interesting to see the authors repeat this study one year later (but this would still be tricky, see my last point).
• The study included numerous statistical comparisons without adjustment for multiple testing. This increases the likelihood that some statistically significant findings (particularly the smaller ones) occurred by chance, which decreases the reliability of the study.
• The authors say that they followed Braun and Clarke’s (2021) guidance for reflexive thematic analysis, and yet the results are largely descriptive and more aligned with inductive content analysis, which is what the paper title seems to hint was the case. Relatedly, the authors don’t discuss reflexivity (which is crucial in RTA!), and they also don’t refer to their positionality. It’s an interesting paper, but the qualitative analysis could have gone into greater depth.
• While the authors report that they found no articles explicitly linking recommendations to identifiable evidence, it is important to remember that news journalism doesn’t always cite research papers or policy reports in the same way that academic writing does. The lack of cited evidence doesn’t mean an evidence base doesn’t exist, but it does make it more difficult for readers to evaluate the authenticity and trustworthiness of what they are reading.
• Finally, as acknowledged by the authors, the study period coincided with wider debates about online safety legislation and high-profile incidents involving youth violence and online misogyny. This means that the study cannot determine whether Adolescence alone contributed to the observed changes in media coverage.

Implications for practice

So we’ve spent this entire blog discussing Netflix, social media, and media coverage, but what does this mean for young people’s mental health?

Media reporting plays an important role in shaping how clinicians, teachers, policymakers and families understand mental health. Good journalism can increase awareness of important issues, encourage help-seeking, and stimulate necessary policy discussions. At the same time, reporting that overstates or simplifies complex evidence may contribute to reactive rather than proportionate responses, reinforce public misconceptions, and shift attention towards interventions that are not yet supported by robust evidence (Davies et al., 2025). While we don’t know much about this in the context of reporting around young people’s social media use, research on suicide reporting has demonstrated that the way mental health is communicated can influence public attitudes and behaviours (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2020). These topics must be reported with due diligence.

For clinicians, the findings reinforce the importance of approaching discussions about young people’s social media use with nuance. Families may arrive at appointments influenced by recent headlines or television shows (McCready & Rohn, 2025). Rather than reinforcing black-or-white narratives that social media is either harmful or harmless, clinicians can help young people and parents interpret risks in the context of the wider evidence and the individual’s experiences (Higson-Sweeney et al., 2025).

For researchers, the study highlights an important and unfortunately well-known gap between evidence and dissemination. The authors found that many recommendations in media coverage were not explicitly linked to identifiable evidence. Researchers therefore have a role not only in producing high-quality evidence, but also in communicating it clearly to the public. Not only does this involve remaining up to date on the latest trends and pop culture, but it may also mean engaging with journalists so that the nuance of research findings are accurately reported.

Statement of interests

Nina Higson-Sweeney has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Links

Primary paper

Laura Bond, J. Z. Ong, Ariane Natin, Níall Lally, & Fiona McNicholas (2026). Framing youth and social media: mixed-methods media discourses before and after Netflix’s Adolescence. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2026.10697

Other references

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. Sage.

Davies, J., Cadwallader, S., Black, L., Hickman Dunne, J., & Panayiotou, M. (2025). The representation of adolescent social media use: a systematic review and content analysis of UK newspaper articles. BMC Public Health, 25(1), 3067. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-23897-5

de Cates, A., Cole-King, A., & Kutcher, S. (2017). Suicide-related internet searches following the release of 13 Reasons Why. The Mental Elf.

Higson‐Sweeney, N., Badenoch, D., & Tomlin, A. (2025). Debate: Standing up for science–how to combat misinformation in child mental health? Five recommendations for disentangling fact from fiction. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 31(1), 74-76. https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.70055

McCready, A. M., & Rohn, K. C. (2025). “It’s a Fine Line”: Parent and Educator Perceptions on the Effects of Adolescent Digital Media Use on Mental Health. Journal of School Health, 95(7), 532-541. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.70028

Milne, B., & Baker, C. R. (2025). From ‘villains’ to ‘idols’: exploring teenage boys’ conflicting attachments to manospheric masculinities. Gender and Education, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2025.2568407

Niederkrotenthaler, T., Braun, M., Pirkis, J., Till, B., Stack, S., Sinyor, M., … & Spittal, M. J. (2020). Association between suicide reporting in the media and suicide: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 368. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m575

Over, H., Bunce, C., Konu, D., & Zendle, D. (2025a). Editorial Perspective: What do we need to know about the manosphere and young people’s mental health?. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 30(3), 272-274. https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12747

Over, H., Bunce, C., Baggaley, J., & Zendle, D. (2025b). Understanding the influence of online misogyny in schools from the perspective of teachers. PloS one, 20(2), e0299339. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299339

Photo credits

• Photo by Getty Images on Unsplash
• Photo by Thibault Penin on Unsplash
• Photo by Rich Smith on Unsplash
• Photo by Kevin Woblick on Unsplash
• Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
• Photo by the blowup on Unsplash