The effect of social media use on
children is a fraught area of research as parents and policymakers try to
ascertain the results of a vast experiment already in full swing. Successive
studies have added pieces to the puzzle, fleshing out the implications of a
nearly constant stream of virtual interactions beginning in childhood.
اضافة اعلان
A new study by neuroscientists at the
University of North Carolina tries something new, conducting successive brain
scans of middle-schoolers between the ages of 12 and 15, a period of especially
rapid brain development.
The researchers found that children who
habitually checked their social media feeds at around age 12 showed a distinct
trajectory, with their sensitivity to social rewards from peers heightening
over time. Teenagers with less engagement in social media followed the opposite
path, with a declining interest in social rewards.
The study, published last week in JAMA
Pediatrics, is among the first attempts to capture changes to brain function
correlated with social media use over a period of years.
The study has important limitations, the
authors acknowledge. Because adolescence is a period of expanding social
relationships, the brain differences could reflect a natural pivot toward
peers, which could be driving more frequent social media use.
“We can’t make causal claims that social
media is changing the brain,” said Eva H. Telzer, an associate professor of
psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
and one of the authors of the study.
But, she added, “teens who are habitually checking
their social media are showing these pretty dramatic changes in the way their
brains are responding, which could potentially have long-term consequences well
into adulthood, sort of setting the stage for brain development over time.”
“Teens who are habitually checking their social media are showing these pretty dramatic changes in the way their brains are responding”
‘Hypersensitive’A team of researchers studied an ethnically
diverse group of 169 students in the sixth and seventh grades from a middle
school in rural North Carolina, splitting them into groups according to how
often they reported checking Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat feeds.
At around age 12, the students already
showed distinct patterns of behavior. Habitual users reported checking their
feeds 15 or more times a day; moderate users checked between one and 14 times;
nonhabitual users checked less than once a day.
The subjects received full brain scans
three times, at approximately one-year intervals, as they played a computerized
game that delivered rewards and punishment in the form of smiling or scowling
peers.
While carrying out the task, the frequent
checkers showed increasing activation of three brain areas: reward-processing
circuits, which also respond to experiences like winning money or risk-taking
behavior; brain regions that determine salience, picking out what stands out in
the environment; and the prefrontal cortex, which helps with regulation and
control.
The results showed that “teens who grow up
checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from
their peers,” Telzer said.
The findings do not capture the magnitude
of the brain changes, only their trajectory. And it is unclear, authors said,
whether the changes are beneficial or harmful. Social sensitivity could be
adaptive, showing that the teenagers are learning to connect with others, or it
could lead to social anxiety and depression if social needs are not met.
Researchers in the field of social media
warned against drawing sweeping conclusions based on the findings.
“They are showing that the way you use it
at one point in your life does influence the way your brain develops, but we
don’t know by how much, or whether it’s good or bad,” said Jeff Hancock, the
founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, who was not involved in the
study. He said that many other variables could have contributed to these
changes.
“What if these people joined a new team — a
hockey team or a volleyball team — so started getting a lot more social
interaction?” he said. It could be, he added, that the researchers are “picking
up on the development of extroversion, and extroverts are more likely to check
their social media.”
“They are showing that the way you use it at one point in your life does influence the way your brain develops, but we don’t know by how much, or whether it’s good or bad.”
He described the paper as “a very
sophisticated piece of work”, contributing to research that has emerged
recently showing that sensitivity to social media varies from person to person.
“There are people who have a neurological
state that means they are more likely to be attracted to checking frequently,”
he said. “We’re not all the same, and we should stop thinking that social media
is the same for everyone.”
A new adolescenceOver the last decade, social media has
remapped the central experiences of adolescence, a period of rapid brain
development.
Nearly all American teenagers engage
through social media, with 97 percent going online every day and 46 percent
reporting that they are online “almost constantly”, according to the Pew
Research Center. Black and Latino adolescents spend more hours on social media
than their white counterparts, research has shown.
Researchers have documented a range of
effects on children’s mental health. Some studies have linked the use of social
media with depression and anxiety, while others found little connection.
Experts who reviewed the study said that
because the researchers measured students’ social media use only once, around
age 12, it was impossible to know how it changed over time or to rule out other
factors that might also affect brain development.
Without more information about other
aspects of the students’ lives, “it is challenging to discern how specific
differences in brain development are to social media checking,” said Adriana
Galvan, a specialist in adolescent brain development at UCLA, who was not
involved in the study.
Jennifer Pfeifer, a professor of psychology
at the University of Oregon and co-director of the National Scientific Council
on Adolescence, said, “All experience accumulates and is reflected in the
brain.”
“I think you want to put it into this
context,” she said. “So many other experiences that adolescents have will also
be changing the brain. So we don’t want to get into some kind of moral panic
about the idea that social media” use is changing adolescents’ brains.
“It’s helping them connect to others and obtain rewards from the things that are common in their social world, which is engaging in social interactions online… This is the new norm.”
Telzer, one of the study’s authors,
described the rising sensitivity to social feedback as “neither good nor bad”.
“It’s helping them connect to others and
obtain rewards from the things that are common in their social world, which is
engaging in social interactions online,” she said.
“This is the new norm,” she added.
“Understanding how this new digital world is influencing teens is important. It
may be associated with changes in the brain, but that may be for good or for
bad. We don’t necessarily know the long-term implications yet.”
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