Between congressional calls to ban TikTok and psychologists ringing the alarm over “phone-based childhoods,” there’s outsized attention being paid at the moment to the negative impacts of social, mass, and digital media on child, adolescent, and teen well-being. Some of these claims are valid and worrying, such as the relationship between poor sleep quality and problematic technology use. Others, like links between social media use and depression, are highly speculative and difficult for researchers to verify on a population level.
Though addressing the crisis of youth mental health is a global priority, not all young people are as likely to be affected negatively by media. Nearly 80 percent of youth on the autism spectrum reportedly have at least one mental health concern, with at least half experiencing two or more including anxiety and disordered eating. Screen media usage is a commonly preferred activity among children on the spectrum (though their time spent with technology may be just as high as non-autistic youth).
Better understanding the role of technology in the lives of young autistic people could be key in providing them with lifesaving supports. But singularly focusing on the drawbacks is the wrong approach. In the time I’ve spent researching hundreds of autistic kids and families over the course of my career, I’ve found that ignoring the benefits of their technology use can be harmful for their mental health too.
Placing too much emphasis on the technology itself downplays the role of peers. Saylor*, a 12-year-old autistic girl, talked about how “on my old Instagram, these girls who bullied me, they called me fat and stuff, [but] the day before [in person] they said that we were like friends.” Children on the spectrum tend to be more accepted by non-autistic classmates in younger grades but move toward the periphery of social networks later on. How this plays out through cyberbullying and networked targeted harassment can be damaging.
But neurodivergent youth get encouragement from peers online too, like figuring out what it means to be autistic on TikTok, and gaining a sense of belonging through video gaming. Playdates between 8-year-old Jeremiah and a fellow autistic boy in his class often involved watching YouTubers playing Minecraft together, which let the boys observe social interaction from a safe distance. Jeremiah’s mom Natasha said that, “Those games help [him and his friends] find something to do. They allow him to have a common language and be social.”
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Overemphasis on kids being passively affected by media, and not their active engagement, doesn’t account for how autistic young people purposefully use media to understand, experience, express, and manage their emotions. Troubling encounters with media, like unexpected exposure to graphic violent and sexual content, can be upsetting for them. Thirteen-year-old Adrian benefitted from talking to his therapist after accidentally encountering Pokémon-themed online pornography. “Unfortunately, it was with characters that he likes, so it was very disturbing to him,” said his mom, Brianna.
Yet technology is also a tool, and kids on the spectrum are using it to make sense of their feelings; for example, by studying clips of emotionally intense movie and TV scenes. Angelica, mom of Bella, a minimally speaking 4-year-old girl, shared that the vivid emotions displayed by characters in the film The Incredibles gave her daughter a vocabulary with which to express herself. When Bella is angry, Angelica said, “She’s been saying ‘Mr. Incredible’ because when [the character] Mr. Incredible gets mad he’ll say, ‘I’m Mr. Incredible!'”
The assumption that technology is having a negative effect generationally additionally flattens out differences among Gen Z autistic kids, who have extremely varied mental health needs. Autistic youth of color and LGBTQ young people on the spectrum may utilize media and technology to deal with additional bias and discrimination on top of ableism, and for self-esteem and confidence building. “Representation matters. We try to do that in all the ways” with media, said Jennifer, a self-identified queer autistic mom of a transgender autistic girl.
The stakes of disentangling the linkages between mental health issues and autistic youth technology use are high. Young people on the spectrum are six times more likely to attempt suicide and two times more likely to die prematurely by suicide and at significantly younger ages compared to their non-autistic peers. Black and Latino autistic young people have a greater likelihood of attempting suicide than those who are white or Asian, such as with the tragic 2021 death of Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor, a 10-year-old Black autistic girl in Utah.
It’s far past time to make autistic youth mental health a priority, and to do so without falling into the trap of technological panic. Continued research on media use, autism, and child well-being, more targeted funding across health care and education, and greater support for diverse families of young people on the spectrum are all critical for curbing this mounting crisis.
*All names mentioned are pseudonyms.
Meryl Alper is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. She studies and teaches about the social, cultural, and health implications of media and technology for youth with disabilities. Her most recent book is Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023).
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.