Org Report

Meta's Internal Research: What the Company Learned About Social Media and Harms to Mental Health from Dozens of Internal Studies

Jan 2026 🇺🇸 Tech and Society Lab, NYU Stern

Compiled by Bennett Sippel, Nikolaus Greb, Emma Park, Zach Rausch, and Jonathan Haidt at NYU Stern's Tech and Society Lab, this January 2026 report catalogs 35 internal Meta research studies conducted between 2018 and 2024 on whether the company's products, particularly Instagram, are associated with harm to young users. The source material comes primarily from whistleblower disclosures — including material previously made public by Frances Haugen and Arturo Béjar — and from internal exhibits released through litigation brought by state attorneys general, including Tennessee's. The compiled summaries describe Meta's own survey and behavioral-log research finding associations between product use and outcomes including cyberbullying, body-image concerns, and depression, using Meta's own internal language such as 'problematic use' rather than clinical diagnostic terms. The report presents these summaries as evidence of what the company's internal research found and knew, in the company's own words, not as an independent clinical assessment by TechKids Foundation or the report's authors.

35 internal studies, 2018–2024

The report catalogs 35 internal Meta research studies conducted between November 2018 and 2024 examining whether Instagram and related products are associated with harm to young users.

Drawn from 99 internal exhibits

Source material includes whistleblower disclosures plus 99 internal exhibits made public through litigation brought by state attorneys general, including Tennessee's.

237,923 respondents in one internal survey

Meta's internal 'BEEF' survey, one of the largest single studies cited in the report, surveyed 237,923 Instagram users about their platform experiences.

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CITATION

Sippel, Bennett, Nikolaus Greb, Emma Park, Zach Rausch, and Jonathan Haidt. "Meta's Internal Research: What the Company Learned About Social Media and Harms to Mental Health from Dozens of Internal Studies." Tech and Society Lab, NYU Stern, January 13, 2026 (last updated March 27, 2026). https://www.metasinternalresearch.org

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