Social media has profoundly reshaped how young people interact, learn, and form identities. However, evidence shows that addictive platform features, manipulative algorithms, and engagement-maximising design can negatively affect mental health, autonomy, and development, especially among youth, a new study says.

Seven recommendations to make social media platforms more supportive of democracy

Today, a new study entitled Algorithms & Democracy – How Social Media Shapes Young Europeans’ Worldviews was published by the highly respected think-tank, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. I has been conducted in three EU Member States: Finland, France, and Romania.

According to the report, social media algorithms of TikTok, Instagram and X prioritise memes, jokes, and emotionally charged political posts. When this kind of content dominates, it undermines constructive civic debate. The study offers seven recommendations to make social media platforms more supportive of democracy.

Social media algorithms shape the information environment of young Europeans in ways they cannot see or control. This exposes them to a distorted, emotionally charged and sensationalist political information environment, which may weaken democratic participation.

The study also shows that half of the young European adults feel disappointment, fear, anger, or sadness when encountering political and societal discussions on social media. The result was similar in all the countries studied: Finland, France and Romania. Social media platforms have rapidly become central sources of information and key arenas for civic discourse in the digital age.

“However, platforms are not neutral intermediaries of information. Through opaque algorithms, they steer public debate, people’s behaviour and emotions,” says Kristo Lehtonen, Director of International programmes at Sitra.

Manipulative algorithms

The results also point to the ongoing deterioration of social media quality, sometimes referred to as ‘enshittification’, as platforms shift from prioritising users’ experience to maximising engagement and monetisation. As much as 67 per cent of all political content encountered by the avatars was opinion-based, entertainment-oriented, or unverifiable. Much of the content was sensationalist, polarising and often promoted extremist views. Examples included AI-generated videos of gorillas telling misogynistic and xenophobic jokes, as well as memes expressing support for Nazi ideology.

In an interview with EU Reporter, Ilkka Räsänen, Project Lead of the Algorithms and Democracy project and Head of EU Affairs at Sitra, declared that “Such content does not violate platform rules and cannot be fact-checked. However, when this type of political content becomes dominant on social media, it creates an environment in which constructive civic discussion is difficult.”

Reinforcing digital information literacy is paramount, he added. ‘’ ‘’Governments and institutions responsible for curricula across different countries should ensure that digital information literacy is included in curricula in age-appropriate ways. And these efforts must go beyond technical skills to equip citizens with critical thinking capabilities. The EU should boost funding to digital information literacy from programmes such as Horizon Europe, Erasmus and CERV, aimed at educational systems, youth organisations, libraries, and fact-checking agencies to support high-quality digital information and AI literacy programmes.”

Raising the minimum age limits for social media access is also a major recommendation in the Sitra report. “In light of the fact that young Europeans spend on average more than 5 hours a day on social media, and that it is broadly recognised that this amount of time spent on social media can have a negative effect on well-being, it’s time to take further action. We call for minimum age limits for full-feature social media access. Our youth should be shielded from the most addictive features of social media platforms, such as infinite scroll, personal feeds based on profiling, automatic notifications, etc. The onus would be on platforms to introduce secure, privacy-preserving age verification methods. The Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has convened an expert panel on the topic, and it will be interesting to see what exactly this expert panel recommends,” Mr Rasanen declared.

The recommendations

1.           In line with the requirements of the Digital Services Act (DSA), platforms should disclose the main ranking parameters in plain language, offer adjustable settings, and provide a non-profiling feed option.

2.           The EU should ensure independent, long-term systemic risk auditing, in particular, sustained monitoring is needed to track ideological amplification, exposure to problematic content, and longer-term emotional and behavioural impacts.

3.           The EU should require very large online platforms (VLOPs) to adopt protective defaults, such as reduced autoplay, clear content controls, and simple tools to adjust recommendation settings.

4.           Democratic resilience must be strengthened through digital information literacy and the so-called civic tech platforms. The EU should also integrate epistemic rights into digital governance frameworks, recognising the need for citizens to have access to truthful information and the ability to understand how AI systems that affect public life are developed and used.

5.           The EU and Member States should coordinate DSA and AI Act enforcement through strong cross-border cooperation, require clear labelling and traceability of AI-generated political content, and build the technical capacity to assess recommender systems, audit algorithmic risks, and verify platform compliance.

6.           The EU should strengthen user mobility and digital self-determination by expanding data portability beyond personal data, developing privacy-preserving standards for optional reputation portability, and explicitly recognising protection from manipulative design as a democratic right.

7.           The EU and member states should consider raising and effectively enforcing minimum age limits for full-feature social media access, preferably through coordinated action at the EU level.

A webinar What do young Europeans see online – and why does it matter for democracy, is organised on Wednesday 11.03.2026. You can register here.

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash