A study finds that social media affects girls' mental health more than boys...
Could social media be the cause for the rise of mental health problems in young people?
In a world where kids spend more time on social media from a younger age than they do getting their hands dirty outside, we have to think that there may be some effects to their mental state of mind.
This was the motivation behind psychologists undertaking research on "whether the rise of social media has played a role in increasing levels of mental health problems in young people." (The Guardian)
Yes, we are going there. We know that this can be a touchy topic for parents of tweens and teens. But we also know that as parents, it is our responsibility to find out everything we can about things that affect or may affect our children.
The thing about social media is that it wasn't created with negative intentions, it was all about growing the relationships between people. Building on the 'connection' between people from different parts of the world.
As per The Guardian, "Psychologists found that girls who increased their time on social media between the ages of 11 and 13 were less satisfied with their lives one year later, with the same trend playing out in boys aged 14 to 15."
Dr Amy Orben, an experimental psychologist and first author on the study at the University of Cambridge, and her colleagues analysed data from 84,000 UK individuals aged between 10 and 80 years old.
The study recorded information from the test subjects that focuses on people’s mental health and well-being and their reported use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. (The Guardian)
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As much as this information sounds scary. The data cannot conclusively say that it is the result of consuming social media that causes the decay in life satisfaction, because everyone consumes social media subjectively.
"The study does not prove that social media harms wellbeing, but the researchers suspect there may be “windows of vulnerability”, which open at different times for boys and girls." (The Guardian)
Perhaps that should be your red flag for now? Monitoring your kids use and their demeanour after consuming social media can be the first step, but most of all it's about communicating with your kids.
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