Social Media: Is It Changing Our Kids’ Brains?
What is social media doing to our kids’ brains?
There is research that says that social media can be actually harming our child’s brains.
We all have heard about the concerns about social media and our children. We worry about who are children are talking to, are they predators or friends? We also worry about if our children are being bullied, what are they seeing and learning? There are a lot of concerns. However now, there is research that says that social media can be actually harming our child’s brains.
“Their researchers report adolescents’ habitual checking of social media is linked with subsequent changes in how their brains respond to the world around them.”
In a study done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which is one of the first long-term studies on adolescent neural development and technology use, their researchers report adolescents’ habitual checking of social media is linked with subsequent changes in how their brains respond to the world around them.
Their study reveals that adolescents’ brains may become more sensitive when anticipating social rewards and punishments over time with increased social media usage.
“The findings suggest that children who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,” said Eva Telzer, a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s psychology and neuroscience department and a corresponding author.
Their researchers tracked 169 students recruited from public middle schools in rural North Carolina over three years.
“At the beginning of the study, participants reported how often they checked three popular social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Their answers ranged from less than once to more than 20 times a day. Participants underwent yearly brain imaging sessions while completing the social incentive delay task, which measures brain activity when anticipating social feedback from peers.”
“While this increased sensitivity to social feedback may promote future compulsive social media use, it could also reflect a possible adaptive behavior that will allow teens to navigate an increasingly digital world,” says Maria Maza, a doctoral student in psychology and one of the study’s two lead authors.
“Other studies have shown that 78% of 13- to 17-year-olds report checking their mobile devices at least hourly; 35% of teens report using at least one of the top five social media platforms almost constantly. The study findings suggest that checking social media repeatedly among young teens ages 12 to 13 may be associated with changes in how their brains develop over a three-year period. The brains of adolescents who checked social media often – more than 15 times per day, became more sensitive to social feedback.”
Based on the information in this study, it is important that we as Parents are clear about the parameters that we set about social media use for our children.
Based on the information in this study, it is important that we as Parents are clear about the parameters that we set about social media use for our children. We do not want them to become so tied to it that they way that they respond to feedback changes because they are so used to getting a certain kind of feedback from social media platforms. We also don’t want the use of social media to become an obsession for them. The way to ensure that this doesn’t happen is to put time limits around the amount of time our children use social media if we allow it at all.
If it is allowed, we must also commit to taking the time to monitor their time and use of social media if we want to ensure not only their safety but to ensure that it is not becoming an addiction for them.