A transport inant international study proposes there has been a acute elevate in what it calls “problematic” social media employ among juvenileer people since the pandemic.
Researchers came to the conclusion after surveying almost 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 apass 44 countries.
The Health Behaviour In School-aged Children (HBSC) study set up, on unrelabelable, 11% of reactents holdd with social media in a problematic way in 2022 – appraised to 7% in 2018.
England, Scotland and Wales all recorded figures above that unrelabelable.
The increate’s authors say the discoverings “elevate encouragent troubles about the impact of digital technology on the mental health and well-being of Europe’s youth”.
They say more action is necessitateed to “uphold fit online behaviours.”
“Problematic employ is most standard amongst 13-year-elderlys – it sort of peaks in that punctual adolescence phase and girls are more probable to increate problematic social media employ than boys,” shelp the study’s international co-ordinator Dr Jo Inchley, from the University of Glasgow.
She shelp the research also discdiswatched how much time juvenileer people spfinish online.
“Apass the study as a whole, we set up fair over a third of adolescents increate continuous online communicate with frifinishs and others,” she shelp.
“That nastys almost all the time thrawout the day they are connected online to frifinishs and other people.”
The increate does not finish all that time spent online is detrimental.
Instead, teenagers who were weighty, but not problematic, employrs of social media increateed stronger peer help and social connections.
But for the “problematic” intransport inantity it set up social media employ was associated with holdiction-enjoy symptoms including:
- diswatch of other activities in favour of spfinishing time on social media
- normal arguments about employ
- lying about how much time is spent online
- an inability to supervise social media employ and experiencing retreatal
It also highweightlesss troubles about the proportion of teenagers pondered to be at danger of “problematic gaming” – someslfinisherg it proposes applies to boys more than girls.
That structureation applied to 15% of teenagers in England – the second highest proportion apass all countries studied.
The unrelabelable proportion of boys who joined daily was 46%, but this figure stood at 52% in England and 57% in Scotland.
And 13-year-elderly boys in England increateed the highest rate of lengthy gaming sessions, with 45% of boys of that age indicating that they joined for at least four hours on gaming days.
Positive and pessimistic consequences
The study has been published by the European arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Dr Hans Henri P Kluge, the WHO’s regional honestor for Europe, shelp the discoverings made evident social media could have both selectimistic and pessimistic consequences for juvenileer people.
He shelp there necessitateed to be more “digital literacy education” to help juvenileer people prolong a fit approach to being online, and rulements, health authorities, directers and parents all had to join their part.
“It’s evident we necessitate prompt and persisted action to help adolescents turn the tide on potentiassociate damaging social media employ, which has been shown to direct to depression, intimidatoring, anxiety, and necessitatey academic carry outance,” he shelp.
Ben Carter, Professor of Medical Statistics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, depictd the increate as a “advantageous snapsboiling of the evidence”.
But he pointed out it was difficult to concur on a definition of what “problematic social media” was, making accumulateing data on it challenging.
Nonetheless, he shelp the study was a “valid contribution to the evidence base”.
