Study Finds Weak Evidence Linking Social Media Use to Teen Mental Health Problems (theguardian.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study. [...] Researchers at the University of Manchester followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their self-reported social media habits, gaming frequency and emotional difficulties to find out whether technology use genuinely predicted later mental health difficulties. Participants were asked how much time on a normal weekday in term time they spent on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media, or gaming. They were also asked questions about their feelings, mood and wider mental health.
The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers' symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls' and boys' social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year, the authors found. More time spent gaming also had a zero negative effect on pupils' mental health. "We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that," said the lead author Dr Qiqi Cheng.
The research, published in the Journal of Public Health, also examined whether how pupils use social media makes a difference, with participants asked how much time spent chatting with others, posting stories, pictures and videos, browsing feeds, profiles or scrolling through photos and stories. The scientists found that actively chatting on social media or passive scrolling feeds did not appear to drive mental health difficulties. The authors stressed that the findings did not mean online experiences were harmless. Hurtful messages, online pressures and extreme content could have detrimental effects on wellbeing, but focusing on screen time alone was not helpful, they said.
The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers' symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls' and boys' social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year, the authors found. More time spent gaming also had a zero negative effect on pupils' mental health. "We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that," said the lead author Dr Qiqi Cheng.
The research, published in the Journal of Public Health, also examined whether how pupils use social media makes a difference, with participants asked how much time spent chatting with others, posting stories, pictures and videos, browsing feeds, profiles or scrolling through photos and stories. The scientists found that actively chatting on social media or passive scrolling feeds did not appear to drive mental health difficulties. The authors stressed that the findings did not mean online experiences were harmless. Hurtful messages, online pressures and extreme content could have detrimental effects on wellbeing, but focusing on screen time alone was not helpful, they said.
In other unrelated news (Score:2)
Honestly social media is the least of the problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Plenty of parks here, most places have a relatively easily reachable mall or shopping centre. Pubs still exist, coffee places are new (I'm speaking as someone who was a teen in the 80s, not so much of the coffee-type culture then). Bikes are back and with more infrastructure, gyms are bigger than ever and exist as a space to meet...it's all still around.
What's different is th
So we here in America are much further along (Score:2)
We do have Parks but like I mentioned if you hang out in them too long the cops
"tracked self-reported" (Score:5, Insightful)
Stopped reading right there. That's no "study", but a speculation based on fantasies.
And yeah, yeah, I know "psychologists" can reliably understand and classify my "psyche" by asking me clever questions.
That Freud portrait out front should have told you so much.
Re: "tracked self-reported" (Score:2)
This is the only take worth reading here. Everyone else is just injecting their own opinion. "self reported" is tantamount to completely useless, and any decent researcher is fully aware of this. May as well have titled the study "teens underestimate / lie about screen time".
The same issue is why most "studies" about diet and weight loss are also useless. People aren't lab rats.
Re: (Score:3)
Gaming and social media use are two completely different things.
Kids are resilient, it's the adults that can't handle social media.
Re: (Score:2)
Stopped reading right there. That's no "study", but a speculation based on fantasies.
Pretty much this... it's essentially anti-vaxxer science. Self reporting isn't verifiable, it cant be tested or retested and most importantly, way too many variables are completely out of control.
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just another moral panic (Score:2, Insightful)
i remember quite a few of these “panics”: backwards masking, stranger danger, poisoned halloween candy, dungeons & dragons, rap music, video games the list goes on.
all of them had something in common, which was rabid media outlets with a hot-button issue that drove readers/viewers with a mix of politician grandstanding.
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Yeah moral panics are always popular.
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Don't forget violent video games and He-Man action figures and comic books and Penny dreadfuls.
Given the evolution of GTA and politicians dropping f-bombs, some hot button issues clearly became less of a priority. That said, the hell did my He-Man action figure ever do to some 80s Karen? I mean damn, the new model comes complete with 30 points of articulation, so clearly it hasn’t done enough to prevent some rather awesome upgrades.
Yeah moral panics are always popular.
Yeah mean Weapons of Mass Distraction, abused by hypocrites in power enjoying their abuse while admonishing mine and yours. Corruption has always been popular. D
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Man, parties in the 80s were the BEST! Get in an unmarked van with a stranger, eat their Halloween candy laced with LSD, listen to Metallica backwards to really get the satanic vibe flowing, then head down to the steam tunnels where you'd play D&D until the drugs wore off. It was the standard Friday night routine growing up and it never got old.
Too bad social media came along and ruined it all.
What's your baseline here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone here have any specimens of adolescents that don't look like mental cases?
I know there are some. But they can be hard to spot.
Re: (Score:1)
You don't say!
Why don't you grow up, spawn some, bring them up and come and share your achievements with us, eh?
Re: What's your baseline here? (Score:3)
Read the study, the details are there. We talk all the time on /. about correlation VS causation.
It clearly shows depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. They exist and aren't the point of the study.
But correlation VS causation?
With a respectable sample size it shows that the time spent is not the cause. In the analysis section it discusses how symptoms of depression and anxiety include withdrawal. Depressed people use it more, but it's true regardless of the amount they used it. Increas
Conflating problems. (Score:2)
Simply: usage time is not the cause. Depressed kids do withdraw more, but time spent in games and social media are not the cause behind the depression. More time, average time, less time, and heavily restricted time made no difference.
Less time? How about cutting them off cold turkey? How about deleting all their accounts and content and THEN studying the mental response?
Did the study dare to prove or ask the more relevant problem regarding pure addiction rather than focusing solely on one type of behavioral response? This is like watching a show focusing on Vegas junkies addicted to pulling slot machine arms for hours a day, but only showing when they lose money instead of showing them losing their cars, homes, families, and sanity.
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Just remember: Figures don't lie... (Score:1)
...but liars figure.
I can make numbers dance to any tune, too. But that don't make it true.
They always reverse cause and effect. (Score:2)
Clearly if you have mental issues, you are likely to have fewer real life friends and also have a greater need for socialization.
So you get online and stay there a lot.
Not that hard to understand.
The basic problem with most of these type of studies is the desire for a simple fix and the fear of the new tend to make the uneducated reverse cause and effect.
If you want to blame something you think is associated with a problem, chances are it is a symptom/attempt to treat that problem.
I think our society isolates kids by design (Score:3)
On top of that we demand way too much of kids these days because they have to be
Stupid (Score:2)
This is retarded. The hypothesis has never been that on an individual level, more social media time = more problems.
Here's what I think: Most of the intense harm comes in very small lumps. These harmful lumps might come in a sea of banal harmless usage, or they might be nearly the entire usage some people have. There is no reason to think that the volume of usage for a given person would correlate with their personal level of harm.
On the other hand, the ubiquity and unavoidability of social media use in
Suggesting a companion study (Score:1)
Could we have a study on how much the current sociology and economic environment in the real world is causing teen mental health problems?
Apparently 'they' need a study to hammer them with the truly obvious.
As Homer Simpson put it... (Score:2)
As Homer Simpson put it...
"Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of all people know that.." from the episode "Homer the Vigilante," https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com].
And the "study" does not define what is "weak" just like other studies and " is not _good_ for you" or when the tobacco industry study that showed the elderly benefited from smoking. As they were more likely to be dead and beyond caring...so avoided the issues with geriatrics; the later part was not highlighted.
JoshK.
The Proof. (Score:2, Insightful)
So, the “experts” have concluded there’s little evidence to suggest social media affects a teens mental health? OK, let’s prove that theory then.
Gather those experts and lock them in the same room with a couple dozen nothing-to-see-here teens who are forced to give up The Cellular Precious before they got locked in the same room.
After a couple of days, let’s see what the experts have to say about mental health.
Then tell them you’ve deleted all their social media accounts
Re: (Score:2)
So, the “experts” have concluded there’s little evidence to suggest social media affects a teens mental health? OK, let’s prove that theory then.
Actually, no, they haven't. The study was only about screen time. By the words of the researcher himself:
"(...) our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that."
Re: (Score:2)
So, the “experts” have concluded there’s little evidence to suggest social media affects a teens mental health? OK, let’s prove that theory then.
Actually, no, they haven't. The study was only about screen time. By the words of the researcher himself:
"(...) our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that."
If the conclusion was reduced to somewhere between pointless and predictable, then the researchers won’t mind at all being locked in the room.
For a week.
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They're saying 'the issue isn't social media in and of itself; it's what's *on* the social media, what's being done *through* social media that's the problem.'
If everybody's feeds were nothing but affirmations, positive stories, and CBT tips and tricks, social media use would probably have much better mental health outcomes.
Unfortunately, it's full of hate, impossible physical standards being sold as 'I drink a thimble of lemon water after every meal' and negative content specifically designed to drive enga
af1n (Score:2)
Basic Science (Score:2)
Before you dismiss this study, pay attention that it is very basic science trying to access specifically the effect of screen time on kids.
"We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that."
No, it didn't say that social media is harmless or it doesn't affect children. It only inferred that screen time alone doesn't. As with any basic science study, more research is needed to try and understand the subject in full.
Incorrect title. (Score:2)
Study Finds Weak Evidence Linking Increased Social Media Use to Teen Mental Health Problems
FTFY.
What's the difference? What they are looking for was a correlation between in the amount of time using social media and mental health problems in teens. At no point were they comparing teens who use social media to those who do not.
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"Study finds weak evidence linking being shot in the heart multiple times to fatal outcomes."
Yeah, being shot in the heart *once* does it for you.
Once you hit a certain social media threshold, it doesn't matter if you're over that threshold by five minutes a day or five hours a day.
media and kids (Score:2)
4chan says (Score:2)
Did they mention.... (Score:1)
"A" study (Score:2)