According to PhoneArena, you should think twice about allowing your youngster access to social media. Several research have found a link between social media use and quality of life, but the most recent study focused on girls and boys aged 10 to 15.
Experts from the Oxford Internet Institute conducted the meta-study, which was then published in the prominent journal Nature Communications. This is an extremely serious study, to say the least.
The research reveals an adverse relationship between social media exposure and a number of major life satisfaction indicators (school, life, appearance, family, etc.). The more social media children 10 to 15 years old are exposed to, the poorer their life satisfaction levels would be, as seen in the science graph below.
Girls are the most affected by these factors. It’s possible that a teenage girl’s social media appearance is far more crucial than a boy’s.
Increased usage of social media in adolescence has also been linked to reduced life satisfaction in people aged 19 and up, according to research. The fact that these children’s brains are experiencing structural and developmental changes at this age can magnify the impact of social media on them.
“The link between social media use and mental health is definitely complex,” said Dr Amy Orben of the University of Cambridge, who conducted the study. They make us susceptible at certain moments in our lives.”
And, before we dismiss social media as a horrible thing and simply ban it, the situation is far more complicated.
Social media isn’t entirely evil
“It’s not a question of whether social media is good or bad,” said Professor Andrew Przybylski, Research Director at the Oxford Internet Institute. “It’s a question of what young people are doing, why they use it, and how they feel about it.” fit into the broader context of family life”.
With this in mind, parents should pay greater attention to what their children do on social media, how they react to particular situations, and maybe encouraging them to do things that make them happy, as well as avoiding bad stereotypes.
We all know it’s easier said than done, but at the very least, this is one of the first significant studies to look into the relationship between social media and adolescent development. The researchers studied 17,400 young adults aged 10 to 21 years old in longitudinal studies (data collected over time).
Adults are affected as well
Social media has an impact on people of all ages, not just youngsters. The full study, which included 72,287 UK individuals ranging in age from 10 to 80 years old and adults of all ages, found the same link between social media use and life satisfaction.
So, what are we supposed to do? Use your phone’s Digital Wellbeing feature to put limitations on your social media usage and attempt to build healthy and strong habits like “don’t use Facebook at dinner” or “turn off your phone before bed.” Happiness is a difficult concept to grasp, but there are paths to it that you should consider.
