Children aged 12 to 13 are the most at risk of mental health issues from heavy use of social media and show a worrying decline in their psychological wellbeing after just one year. Source: The Age.
These are the findings of a landmark, decade-long study, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which examined the behaviour and mental health of almost 1200 Melbourne children.
The researchers found that during the ages of 12 to 13, the dangers of using social media for two hours or more a day rose sharply, particularly among girls.
They found that for every 100 girls of this age group who were using social media for at least two hours daily, there were about 11 additional cases of high depressive symptoms and poorer wellbeing detected a year down the track, when compared with peers who used it for less than an hour a day.
Nandi Vijayakumar, a cognitive neuroscientist at Deakin University and a lead researcher of the study, said the risk peaked during early adolescence for several reasons, including the onset of puberty and the beginning of a time when girls become increasingly sensitive to peer approval and exclusion.
“This is when young people first start using social media, typically, and learning how to navigate online interactions, but it is also a period of rapid brain development and important social changes,” Dr Vijayakumar said.
She said parts of the brain responsible for emotion regulation were also still maturing, meaning adolescents might be less equipped to manage the more challenging aspects of social media, such as social comparisons and bullying.
The study found boys aged 12 to 13 also faced a decline in their mental health if they used social media for more than two hours every day.
Researchers observed about an additional seven cases of high depressive symptoms and poorer mental health per 100 boys, when compared with those who limited their time online to less than an hour a day.
The research focused on the years 2015 to 2021 when children were between the ages of 12 and 18.
The findings come six months after Australia introduced its controversial under-16 social media ban, and as debate still rages over whether it has been successful in protecting young people online.
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Young teens risk mental health harm after one year of social media use (By Melissa Cunningham, The Age)
