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Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds
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
pu zzle, fleshing out the implications of a nearly constant
stream of virtual interactions beginning in childhood.
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 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.”
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,” Dr. Telzer
said. 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.
“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. 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.
Over the last decade, social media has remapped
the central experiences of adolescence, a period of rapid
brain development. Researchers have documented a
range of effects on children’s mental health. Some
studies have linked use of social media with depression
and anxiety, while others found little connection.
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 the University of
California Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study.
Dr. 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.”
Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/
Although this new study has found some important
aspects, it
