Social media use may harm teens' mental health by disrupting positive activities, study... - 0 views
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The research, published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, involved interviews with almost 10,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 in England. The researchers found that social media may harm girls' mental health by increasing their exposure to bullying and reducing their sleep and physical exercise.
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In other words: Social media itself might not be to blame for mental health issues; rather, it takes away from girls' sleep quality and exercise while exposing users to cyberbullying, and that's what leads to lower well-being and problems with mental health.
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The researchers found that, in both sexes, very frequent social media use was associated with greater psychological distress. The effect was especially clear among girls: The more often they checked social media, the greater their psychological distress.But nearly 60% of the impact on psychological distress in girls could be accounted for by low sleep quality and greater exposure to cyberbullying, with decreased physical activity playing a lesser role. But for boys, those factors explained only 12% of the effects of very frequent social media use on psychological distress.
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