Background: High rates of social media use and mental ill-health among young people have drawn significant public, policy, and research concern. Rapid technological advancements and changes in platform design have outpaced our understanding of the health effects of social media and hampered timely evidence-based regulatory responses. While a proliferation of recommendations to social media companies and governments has been published, a comprehensive summary of recommendations for protecting young people’s mental health and digital safety does not yet exist. Objective: This scoping review synthesized published recommendations for social media companies and governments in relation to young people’s (aged 12-25 years) mental health. A qualitative approach was used to undertake inductive content analysis, where recommendations were grouped under conceptually similar themes. Methods: We searched academic (PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO) and nonacademic (Overton and Google) databases for relevant documents. Eligible documents provided recommendations to regulators and social media companies that pertained to social media, young people, and mental health. This review excluded recommendations for young people, caregivers, educators, or clinicians surrounding strategies for managing individual social media use; instead, the recommendations emphasized the regulation or design of social media products and practices of social media companies. Peer-reviewed and gray literature from selected Western contexts (Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States) were relevant for inclusion. Documents were published between January 2020 and September 2024. Results: Of the identified 4980 unique reports, 120 (2.41%) progressed to full-text screening, and 70 (1.41%) met the inclusion criteria. Five interrelated themes were identified: (1) legislating and overseeing accountability, (2) transparency, (3) collaboration, (4) safety by design, and (5) restricting young people’s access to social media. Conclusions: This review emphasizes the need for multipronged approaches to address the rapidly increasing presence and reach of social media platforms in the lives of young people. These recommendations provide practical and tangible paths forward for governments and industry, backed by expert organizations in youth mental health and technology regulation at a time when expert-informed guidance is sorely needed. Rigorous evaluation of the proposed recommendations is needed while continuing to build on the emerging peer-reviewed evidence base that should form the foundation of policy and regulatory changes.

Gender-responsive healthcare is critical to advancing men’s health given that masculinities intersect with other social determinants to impact help-seeking, engagement with primary healthcare, and patient outcomes. A scoping review was undertaken with the aim to synthesize gender-responsive approaches used by healthcare providers (HCPs) to engage men with primary healthcare. MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles published between 2000 and February 2024. Titles and abstracts for 15,659 citations were reviewed, and 97 articles met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and analyzed thematically. Thirty-three approaches were synthesized from across counseling/psychology, general practice, social work, nursing, psychiatry, pharmacy, and unspecified primary healthcare settings. These were organized into three interrelated themes: (a) tailoring communication to reach men; (b) purposefully structuring treatment to meet men’s health needs, and (c) centering the therapeutic alliance to retain men in care. Strength-based and asset-building approaches focused on reading and responding to a diversity of masculinities was reinforced across the three findings. While these approaches are recommended for the judicious integration into health practitioner education and practice, this review highlighted that the evidence remains underdeveloped, particularly for men who experience health inequities. Critical priorities for further research include intersectional considerations and operationalizing gender-responsive healthcare approaches for men and its outcomes, particularly at first point-of-contact encounters.

In an age of increasing loneliness and associated poor mental health, research uncovering the extent to which social connection can be achieved digitally is paramount. This is particularly important among men, who experience unique barriers to achieving meaningful social connections due to masculine norms including independence and self-reliance. Loneliness is a known determinant of both psychological distress and greater time on social media, however relationships among these constructs are yet to be studied specifically among men. This study aimed to examine a novel mediation model to uncover whether time on social media mediates the association between loneliness and psychological distress, alongside a moderating effect of age. A community sample of 979 men of mean age 36.0 years (range = 18–78, SD = 13.11) took part via an online survey involving measures of study constructs. Results highlighted a novel moderated mediation effect: for younger men only, loneliness predicts psychological distress via time spent on social media. Men experiencing loneliness appear to turn to social media in attempt at digital connection, however for younger men in particular, often this fails to ameliorate links between loneliness and psychological distress. Implications for public health messaging, clinical work with men and future interventional studies are discussed.