Social media may alter brains of teenagers – Study | Daily News

Social media may alter brains of teenagers – Study

Teens who check social media frequently could be changing the way their brains develop.
Teens who check social media frequently could be changing the way their brains develop.

US: 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.

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.

The study, published on Tuesday in Jama Paediatrics, is among the first attempts to capture changes to brain function correlated with social media use over a period of years. 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 behaviour. 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 STRAITS TIMES

 


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