In the article on social media and adolescent mental health, I addressed usage time and its limits as a metric. Here, the question is different: not how much adolescents watch, but what they learn to watch within a system that organises, repeats and measures images before presenting them.
I write from the perspective of digital communication and platform analysis, not from clinical or pedagogical fields. I do not attribute psychological effects: I study the conditions under which images circulate.
The scale of the environment
The report Childhood, adolescence and digital well-being, published in 2025 by UNICEF Spain, the University of Santiago de Compostela, the General Council of Computer Engineering and Red.es, is based on a large-scale consultation. Its official summary indicates that 92.5% participate in at least one social network, 75.8% in three or more, and 78.3% of pupils in the final years of primary school are on one. The average age of access to a first mobile phone is 10.8 years.
These are data on access and usage. They establish the context of exposure; they do not demonstrate an aesthetic effect or a causal relationship with visual judgement.
The feed is not a neutral sequence
Before an image reaches the user, the platform has decided which formats it admits, which signals it registers and how it organises content. The selection may utilise relationships, explicit choices and observed behaviour.
The image also appears alongside metrics, comments and signs of provenance. An interaction figure measures a response within the platform, not artistic quality. However, by constantly accompanying the image, it is incorporated into the way its reception is perceived.
Format, repetition and legibility
Circulation favours specific conditions: adaptation to the screen, rapid recognition, serial continuity and the possibility of repetition. This does not produce a single aesthetic. There are complex, slow and minority practices within the same networks.
The sustainable assertion is more limited: formats and the distribution system are part of the conditions under which an image is prepared and finds an audience.
Anticipating without knowing the code
It is not necessary to understand the recommender to learn through trial and error which cover, duration, frequency or trend obtains the most visibility. That anticipation can intervene before publishing and, at times, before creating.
I have not located a Spanish study that allows for the quantification of how that anticipation affects the formal decisions of adolescents. Nor is there sufficient evidence to assert that a uniform "algorithmic aesthetic" exists or that the algorithm determines young people’s taste.
What the DSA guidelines acknowledge
The European Commission published guidelines on the protection of minors in accordance with the Digital Services Act on 14 July 2025. These are non-binding recommendations that may guide the assessment of compliance, but following them does not, in itself, guarantee compliance with the law.
They recommend greater control for minors over their feed, prioritising explicit signals over behavioural ones, and the default deactivation of features such as autoplay, streaks, read receipts, and certain notifications. The focus shifts from individual volition to service design.
A subsequent proposal, not current legislation
On 17 September 2026, the Commission presented the EU KIDS Act proposal, COM(2026) 681 final, procedure 2026/0286(COD). It includes gradual access restrictions, age verification, and safety-by-design measures for certain services used by minors.
It is a proposal subject to the ordinary legislative procedure. The European Parliament and the Council must negotiate it. It should not be described as current law nor as an already applicable extension of a platform's obligations.
DSA for YOUth: making the architecture legible
The DSA for YOUth campaign translated the guidelines into materials for families, educators, and young people. It includes explanations regarding interfaces, recommenders, searches, commercial practices, moderation, and feed control.
It is a precedent for regulatory mediation: it attempts to ensure the user understands part of the design that conditions them. It is not an art education project, nor does it provide evidence regarding taste or visual creation.
From safety to visual education
Understanding how a feed is ordered does not, in itself, teach one how to interpret an image. However, it allows for the incorporation of questions that often disappear: why it appears, why it is repeated, what is measured, who is excluded, and how it changes when adapted for circulation.
Visual education can engage with the platform as an object of analysis, not merely as a publication channel. This requires preserving examples, comparing feeds, and distinguishing observation from inference.
What cannot be concluded
It cannot be asserted from these sources that networks destroy critical judgement, reduce attention spans, or homogenise adolescent creation. Nor that greater feed control automatically produces a better relationship with images.
It can, however, be maintained that the architecture participates in their selection, presentation, and public valuation. As I explain in Mass Technology and Ethical Consumption, individual decision-making operates within options organised by infrastructures and business models.
About the open conversation
There is a lack of studies that verifiably connect recommenders, metrics, and adolescent visual decisions without converting correlations or testimonials into causality. It is also of interest to know how schools and museums address the provenance, repetition, and visibility of images within the feed.
If you are researching these practices or have developed exercises that allow for the comparison of what the platform displays and what it excludes, write to me. Methods and materials that allow for the examination of the process, rather than mere opinions on whether networks are good or bad, will be especially useful.
The author's relationship with the cases
There is no financial, professional, or collection-based relationship with the cited institutions.
Sources
- UNICEF España, Infancia, adolescencia y bienestar digital (in Spanish), 2025; DOI 10.30923/IABD202510.
- Red.es, institutional summary of results, 11 November 2025.
- European Commission, guidelines on the protection of minors under the DSA, 14 July 2025.
- EUR-Lex, EU KIDS Act proposal, COM(2026) 681 final, 17 September 2026.
- European Commission, DSA for YOUth.