Consider it a warning parents won’t want to scroll past. New data has pointed to what many already feared — social media is hurting kids’ brains.
A study out of the UC San Francisco showed that children who spend more time on the apps scored lower on reading, vocabulary and memory tests. And their performance only slipped the more they scrolled.
Researchers mined the data of more than 6,000 children, ages 9 to 11, who are part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which tracks social media use among other factors.
The children were split into three groups based on how their social media habits evolved over time.
One group used little to no social media, while the second started with low use but reached about an hour a day by the time they turned 13. The final group was spending three or more hours each day on the sites by that age.
Each group completed a series of cognitive tests at the start of the ABCD study and then again in early adolescence.
The researchers found that kids who spent about one hour each day on social media scored one or two points lower on reading and memory tests compared to those who didn’t scroll at all, while those who scrolled for three or more hours scored up to five points lower.
“It is interesting to note that both the low and the high social media use populations had this poor academic performance,” Dr. Sanjeev Kothare, director of pediatric neurology at Northwell Health’s Cohen Children’s Medical Center, who wasn’t involved in the research, told theNew York Post.
Kothare said he suspects the issue is twofold: Kids might be using social media during class, which might cut into their focus, or also staying up too late scrolling, which could leave them sleep-deprived and sluggish the next day.
The study found that the effects were specific tosocial media.
General screen time, like watching TV, is more passive, Kothare said, and it allows for multitasking.
“You could be doing two things at the same time, keeping one eye and ear on the screen and doing something else,” he said.
Social media, however, is adifferent animal.
“It’s much more active,” Kothare said, noting that kids are directly engaging with content, which demands more attention from the brain.
The brain “doesn’t have enough cognitive or memory remaining to focus on scholastic performance,” he said.
“So, overall, it is detrimental for these adolescents to be involved in social media,” Kothare said. “They should do more constructive things for their academic and school performance during school hours and also, if possible, after hours.”
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory warning that social media could harm the mental health of children and teens.
