How does social media affect kids’ developing brains? US Surgeon General releases mental health advisory

What effect does social media have on kid’s developing brains? US Surgeon General releases advisory cautioning
Credit: Pixabay/ kreatikar

The U.S. surgeon general released an advisory [recently] warning that the country’s children “have become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment” of social media use. The trouble is, the results aren’t in yet.

There is no question that the nation is experiencing a crisis in youth mental health. In 2021, 42 percent of high school students in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

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Statistically, some studies have found significant associations between heavy social media use and mental health challenges; others, including an analysis focused on the more general category of “digital technology,” have found that the correlation of mental health issues to spending a lot of time online is only as strong as the association between mental health problems and benign activities such as “eating potatoes.” Others, still, have discovered positive effects of social media use — especially among LGBTQ+ kids and members of other marginalized communities who can often find more diversity and acceptance on the internet than they do at home. Sometimes, different groups of scientists analyze the same set of numbers and come to opposite conclusions.

This is an excerpt. Read the full article here

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