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Crisis clinician: social-media experiences can contribute to suicidal thoughts, clinicians report
Summary
A licensed clinical social worker who leads a crisis team said youths seen in the hospital show distress tied to social-media experiences — bullying and distressing content — and stressed that content and context matter more than a raw hour count.
Samantha Safiotti, a licensed clinical social worker who leads crisis clinicians at Bayshore Medical Center, told the panel that clinicians increasingly see youth whose distress is connected to online interactions. She emphasized that it is often what children absorb on social media — bullying, harassment or traumatic content — rather than only the number of hours that correlates with severe symptoms.
"We do see that a lot... feelings of suicidal thoughts, wanting to hurt themselves," Safiotti said, describing cases seen in the hospital and noting clinicians observe mood swings, self-harm and crisis behaviors that can be associated with online victimization or distressing content. She cautioned that correlation does not equal causation and recommended that families watch both the amount and the nature of online exposure.
