When a potentially threatening situation is perceived, it triggers a series of neural and hormonal events allowing us to deal with that perceived threat. This complex response involves multiple neural, behavioural, and physiological systems, ultimately producing the physical and psychological feelings of being stressed1. Many find some social media content has such triggering effects on stress, as most obviously seen in content related to emotive topics, like suicide and self-harm2. The impact of such content on younger people is a focus of debate, and evidence from behavioural neuroscience may help to explain why this content is differentially damaging for youngsters.

Automatic Stress-Driven Behaviors

Sometimes the behaviours resulting from stressor stimuli can feel like they are not entirely under our conscious control3. This is a perfectly natural, and indeed essential, rapid and unthinking response that helps to keep us safe. For most of us, these feelings and behaviours last only a relatively short time, until we deal with the situation, or the situation resolves. As part of gaining control over the stress response, the limbic regions of the brain that are involved in initially triggering the peripheral, hormonal, and behavioural responses, are brought back under the control of the cortical regions4. Once this happens, we function in a rational and regulated way.

As we leave adolescence, it becomes easier for the cortex to control these stress responses5. However, cortical control is not so well established for children, and they are not always as emotionally regulated in the face of stressors as older individuals6. The development and interconnection of the various brain regions involved in the stress response occur at different rates. The prefrontal cortex, which helps to regulate the limbic system, develops at a slower rate than the limbic system (including the amygdala). Initially, the amygdala and striatal structures of the limbic system have a relatively greater volume than the cortex which develops most between the ages of 7 and 18.6 A relatively greater limbic volume, compared to the cortex, may make emotional regulation harder for children.

Impact of Hormones and Neurotransmitters

Regulation of stress responses is also impacted by the effects of hormones and neurotransmitters on the pathways linking the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system7,8. These pathways allow the limbic system to contact the prefrontal cortex to, as it were, ask for advice when confronted by a stressor; and allow the prefrontal cortex to pass that ‘advice’ back to the limbic system4,5. These pathways are not fully developed until about our early 20s6, although some suggest they only fully develop during our early 30s9. The impaired ability for downward regulation of the limbic response by the cortex means that stress reactions – fight, flight, freeze, attach, etc. – can easily run out of control, with results that can be harmful4. All of this means that any stimulus perceived as a threat will produce much less regulated responses for children10.

As a result, children are often more susceptible to the consequences of stress responses, making them vulnerable to stress triggers in ways that older people are not5,7. This vulnerability can lead to unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, consequences. This is often seen when children are exposed to threatening stimuli via social media, which can lead to unexpectedly negative reactions.8

One set of stimuli that can readily be experienced on social media are self-harm and/or suicide related images11. It is known that people who are presented with messages relating to self-harm or suicide respond to them like threat responses. Brain scan studies have shown that activation of the limbic systems associated with stress and threat, when a message or image that produces thoughts of self-harm or suicide is seen, is similar to that seen under known stressful situations12,13.

Challenges in Regulating Responses to Social Media

Thus, being exposed to such material on social media may be a threat-triggering situation that requires regulation. As this is harder for people who are younger, especially children, then their responses to such material can be more extreme. There are, not surprisingly, few studies that have examined directly the responses of children to such stimuli – the ethical problems of conducting such studies are obvious and insurmountable. However, reports from children who have experienced such exposure, after the fact, tend to bear out these suggestions – they report impulses, and almost uncontrollable levels of stress, and difficulty regulating their behaviours14. This can lead to the emission of triggered behaviours that may not be optimal in terms of safety.

Given the levels of vulnerability of children, in part due to their under-developed or overwhelmed cortical stress-control system, precautions need to be taken when they are in situations involving triggering material. Recent suggestions by social media companies have involved messages being sent to the parents of any child who looks up material related to self-harm and/or suicide online15. It is far from clear that this will achieve anything – for one thing, the time scale of a triggered stress response can be disturbingly fast – a dysregulated individual may act almost instantly when under perceived threat, and messaging a parent about it may be too little, too late. Removing the material, at least from children, would serve the purpose, but how (or even if) this could be done is completely unclear.

Another possibility that could be developed concerns the use of interpersonal emotional regulation – when your cortex cannot control your limbic system, then ‘borrowing’ somebody else’s may help16. The other person, whose cortex is not switched off through high cortisol levels, can lend regulating support to the one in need. Of course, getting such interpersonal regulation at the time of crisis is the trick.

The overall message that emerges from all of this is that material related to self-harm and suicide, which is readily available on social media, can have triggering effects on younger people. These effects are not easily controlled, and this may have a differential impact on their reactions, due to under-developed stress-regulation systems.

1. Herman, J.P., McKlveen, J.M., Ghosal, S., Kopp, B., Wulsin, A., Makinson, R., ... & Myers, B. (2016). Regulation of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenocortical stress response. Comprehensive Physiology, 6(2), 603-621.

2. Arendt, F., Scherr, S., & Romer, D. (2019). Effects of exposure to self-harm on social media: Evidence from a two-wave panel study among young adults. New Media & Society, 21(11-12), 2422-2442.

3. Sapolsky, R. (2003). Taming stress. Scientific American, 289(3), 86-95.

4. Van der Kolk, B.A. (1994). The body keeps the score: Memory and the evolving psychobiology of posttraumatic stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1(5), 253-265.

5. Datta, D., & Arnsten, A.F. (2019). Loss of prefrontal cortical higher cognition with uncontrollable stress: molecular mechanisms, changes with age, and relevance to treatment. Brain Sciences, 9(5), 113.

6. Ahmed, S.P., Bittencourt-Hewitt, A., & Sebastian, C.L. (2015). Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 11-25.

7. McEwen, B.S., & Morrison, J.H. (2013). The brain on stress: vulnerability and plasticity of the prefrontal cortex over the life course. Neuron, 79(1), 16-29.

8. George, M., Abdel Mageed, S., Mansour, D. et al. (2025). The cortisol axis and psychiatric disorders: an updated review. Pharmacoogcal. Reports, 77, 1573–1599.

9. Mousley, A., Bethlehem, R.A.I., Yeh, FC. et al. (2025). Topological turning points across the human lifespan. Nature Communications, 16, 10055.

10. Amirkhan, J., & Auyeung, B. (2007). Coping with stress across the lifespan: Absolute vs. relative changes in strategy. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28, 298-317,

11. Scherr, S. (2022). Social media, self-harm, and suicide. Current Opinion in Psychology, 46, 101311.

12. Nam, G., Moon, H., Lee, J. H., & Hur, J. W. (2022). Self-referential processing in individuals with nonsuicidal self-injury: an fMRI study. Neuroimage: clinical, 35, 103058.

13. Schmaal, L., van Harmelen, A.L., Chatzi, V. et al. (2020). Imaging suicidal thoughts and behaviors: a comprehensive review of 2 decades of neuroimaging studies. Molecular Psychiatry, 25, 408–427.

14. Aspaslan, N. (2003). Reflections on the experiences and needs of adolescents who have attempted suicide: A qualitative study. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 39(3).

15. Morris, R., & MacMahon, L. (26.2.26). Instagram to alert parents if teens search for self-harm content. BBC News. Instagram to alert parents if teens search for self-harm content - BBC News

16. Zaki, J., & Williams, W.C. (2013). Interpersonal emotion regulation. Emotion, 13(5), 803.

There was a problem adding your email address. Please try again.

By submitting your information you agree to the Psychology Today Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy

© Psychology Today