The impact of social media on people's lives is a complex issue, with both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, social media has made it easier for people to connect with each other, share information, and express themselves. It has also provided a platform for promoting causes, connecting with friends and family, and staying informed about current events. Social media can be a great tool for social change, provided the associated challenges are dealt with effectively.

Growth in the number of people who use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat and other social media platforms — and the time spent on them—has garnered interest and concern among policymakers, teachers, parents, and clinicians about social media's impacts on our lives and psychological well-being.

While the research is still in its early years — Facebook itself only celebrated its 15th birthday this year — media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart the ways in which time spent on these platforms is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives.

One particularly pernicious concern is whether time spent on social media sites is eating away at face-to-face time, a phenomenon known as social displacement .Fears about social displacement are longstanding, as old as the telephone and probably older. “This issue of displacement has gone on for more than 100 years,” says Jeffrey Hall, PhD, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas. “No matter what the technology is,” says Hall, there is always a “cultural belief that it's replacing face-to-face time with our close friends and family.”

“What we have found, in general, is that social media presents both risks and opportunities for adolescents,” says Kaveri Subrahmanyam, PhD, a developmental psychologist, professor at Cal State LA, and associate director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

There are also more questions than answers when it comes to how social media affects the development of intimate relationships during adolescence. Does having a wide network of contacts — as is common in social media—lead to more superficial interactions and hinder intimacy? Or, perhaps more importantly, “Is the support that you get online as effective as the support that you get offline?” ponders Subrahmanyam. “We don't know that necessarily.”

In fact, growing up with digital technology may be changing teen brain development in ways we don't yet know — and these changes may, in turn, change how teens relate to technology. “Because the exposure to technology is happening so early, we have to be mindful of the possibility that perhaps changes are happening at a neural level with early exposure,” says Subrahmanyam. “How youths interact with technology could just be qualitatively different from how we do it.”