American parents have become more worried about the content of their children’s Instagram feeds than that of their lunch boxes.According to a new national poll, the screens their children can’t seem to put down are the greatest of many threats.
The top three concerns for kids’ health all touch back to technology: social media, excessive screen time, and internet safety.
The Changing Trends
Results from the 2025 C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health show parents’ growing concern about children’s exposure to technology and its impact on their well-being. Two-thirds believe physical health is worsening, and four in five say the same about mental health.
“The more news that comes out about it, the more it signals to parents that it’s a problem,“ Sarah J. Clark, co-director of the Mott Poll, told The Epoch Times. ”What makes parents sit up and notice with the screen stuff is, ‘Oh no, that’s right here in our house. Is that dangerous?”Physical health problems like smoking and obesity are at the lower half of the list, while mental health sits at fifth place. The top three concerns remain unchanged from last year—dominated by tech-related issues—with depression, anxiety, and stress just outside the top three but closely tied to technology use.
The poll results represent a significant reversal from just a decade ago. Since 2020, technology and mental health have dominated, while obesity—once a top-three issue—has dropped out of the top 10.
Social media and excessive screen use were the top two concerns shared by parents in 2025, with three out of four parents worried.
Although social media is the top concern for parents in 2025, two years ago, it was excessive screen time, with social media coming in a close second. For the past two years, these two issues have competed for the position of parents’ greatest worry within their children’s lives.
Social media first appeared on the poll in 2020 and immediately took the number one spot that year. The sudden rise was driven by the pandemic, as children spent more time online for school and social connection.
Internet safety was ranked third at 66 percent, and has been one of parents’ top 10 worries since 2007, which is when the poll first started.
Mental health issues and poor diet had more than 60 percent of parents concerned. Mental health-related issues have been on the poll for more than 15 years.
Bullying and cyberbullying ranked second in 2020, with the poll attributing their rise to children’s increased time online. By 2023, it had dropped to fifth place, and in the latest poll, it sits at ninth.
Why Screens Feel More Threatening
The shift raises a key question: What has changed to make screens a bigger source of anxiety for parents than traditional health risks such as junk food or future disease?
Dr. Andrea Diaz Stransky, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and advisor for Emora Health, said screens present a uniquely modern challenge.
“Screens feel especially urgent to many parents because they are omnipresent, poorly regulated, and deeply intertwined with children’s mental, emotional, and social development,” Stransky told The Epoch Times. Parents may be seeing firsthand how excessive noneducational screen use disrupts sleep, reduces physical activity, strains parent-child relationships, and ultimately affects mental health, she added.The anxiety is compounded by a role reversal that many parents find unsettling. Clark noted that growing up today is very different from when these parents were kids—not because of the devices themselves, but because children often surpass their parents’ technological knowledge.“[That] can make parents feel a little bit anxious because you’re supposed to be the one who knows and is ahead—but with tech, the tables are flipped, and it happens early,” Clark said.
Unlike physical risks—where the threat is visible and the solutions are tangible—digital dangers often play out quietly, with a majority of parents finding themselves inadequate to protect their children against digital risks, one study suggested.
The Mental Health Connection
Parents’ fears stem from what they witness at home—more anxiety, more behavioral issues, and more conflict, often tied to device use, Tom Kersting, a licensed therapist, told The Epoch Times. He is the author of “Disconnected” and “Raising Healthy Teenagers,” books that examine how technology shapes children’s mental health, social skills, and resilience.
“We’re in a mental health epidemic,” he said. “Anxiety and depression have skyrocketed since 2012, when the smartphone became mainstream—and that rise is directly correlated to screen use.”
Recent research supports these concerns. Yunyu Xiao, assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian, authored a recently published study, which found that addictive patterns of social media and mobile phone use are tied to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teens.
“These patterns can disrupt sleep, reduce face-to-face social interactions, and expose youth to harmful online content, including cyberbullying and unrealistic social comparisons,” Xiao told The Epoch Times, noting that over time they can erode self-esteem, deepen isolation, and worsen mental health vulnerabilities.
Parents increasingly report oppositional and defiant behavior, often erupting when a device is taken away, Kersting said.
“Almost always, these verbal—and sometimes physical—outbursts happen when a parent takes away an electronic device like a phone or gaming system,” he said, describing it as “essentially dopamine withdrawal.”
Too much time behind screens robs adolescents of their social and emotional development. They lose out on social time, physical activities, and hands-on hobbies where they can learn to manage stress and become emotionally adaptable, Stransky said.
Physical and Social Costs
The screen time crisis extends beyond mental health.
On a more subtle level, screens are eroding essential life skills, Kersting said. “One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is a reduction in social skills and emotional intelligence.” These abilities—critical for empathy and social interaction—are built only through real-world connections. “The only way to develop a robust emotional intelligence is through face-to-face interaction with other human beings—something our kids have way too little of,” he added.
Sleep deprivation has become endemic, especially among middle and high school students whose parents allow the use of phones in their bedrooms at night.
In a survey Kersting conducted with 100 high school students who knew and trusted him, 93 said they went to sleep between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on school nights—often without their parents knowing. “These screens and sleep deprivation [together] lend themselves to behavioral issues, emotional issues, anxiety, and academic problems,” he said.
Physical health suffers too. Stransky noted that healthy lifestyles require regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and good sleep—all of which excessive screen time disrupts. Kersting added that sedentary screen time exposes children to marketing for unhealthy foods, creating a cycle of poor health choices.
Recognizing the Red Flags
Parents often only recognize the problem after their children start acting noticeably different, Clark said, by which point the problem may already be well established.
Not all screen use should be treated equally, Stransky noted. “In the same way that we help our children to ‘balance their diets’ and keep ‘junk food’ in check, we need to develop strategies to teach our children digital hygiene and intentional screen-related activities,” she said.
Xiao agreed, total hours online tell only part of the story, she said. “Our study suggests that it’s not just how long youth are online—it’s how and why they are engaging.”
Red flags that a teen’s relationship with their devices may be turning unhealthy include:
- Loss of control: Repeated unsuccessful attempts to cut back
- Functional impairment: Slipping grades, withdrawal from friends or hobbies, or major disruptions to sleep
- Emotional dependence: Feeling anxious, irritable, or distressed when not online
- Risk exposure: Engaging with harmful communities, being cyberbullied, or encountering triggering content
Adults should also take notice when young people consistently choose screens over basic needs like eating, sleeping, or spending time with others offline, Xiao added.While parents are aware of the risks, many still hand over devices to their children at just a little older than 10 for fear that their kids will feel left out, Kersting said. “It’s a social conformity problem. They roll the dice and hope it won’t happen to their kid. It’s not a risk worth taking.”
