Social media use linked to lower reading, memory scores in preteens : Shots

Teens who use more social media perform worse on reading, vocabulary, and memory tests in early adolescence compared to those who use little or no social media.

That's according to a new study that suggests a link between social media use and cognitive decline in teenagers. findings published in JAMA.

“This is a really exciting study,” says the psychologist. Mitch Prinstein from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the new study.

“This confirms a lot of what we've been hearing in schools across the country, which is that kids are simply having a really hard time concentrating on learning as well as they used to, perhaps because of the way social media has changed their ability to process information.”

While most previous research has focused on the impact of social media use on children's mental health, “it is critical to understand how social media use during school specifically impacts learning, especially since many schools are considering banning phone use right now,” says the study author and pediatrician. Jason Nagata University of California at San Francisco.

A look at reading and memory

To understand this, Nagata and his colleagues used data from one of the largest ongoing studies of adolescents, called Study of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD). Scientists followed thousands of teenagers through adolescence to understand their brain development.

The ongoing study surveys children every year about their social media use and takes a battery of learning and memory tests every two years. Nagata and his colleagues used data on more than 6,000 children aged 9 to 10 years, following them into early adolescence.

They divided the children into three groups based on their developing patterns of social media use. The largest group, approximately 58% of children, used social media virtually over the next few years. The second largest group, about 37% of children, started out with low levels of social media use, but by the time they were 13 years old, they were spending about an hour on social media every day.

The remaining 6% of children, referred to as the “high-growth group” on social media, were spending about three or more hours a day by age 13.

“Dosing effect”

All groups were given a battery of tests to measure their cognitive functioning at baseline and into early adolescence. For example, oral reading recognition test tested their reading and vocabulary skills. Another test called picture vocabulary testasked them to match the correct pictures with the words they heard.

“What was really remarkable and perhaps surprising to me was that even the low level [increasing] Social media users, that is, those who had about an hour a day by age 13, performed 1 to 2 points lower on average on reading and memory tasks than those who did not use social media,” says Nagata.

And the high growth group performed 4 to 5 points lower than non-social media users.

“Thus, those who used social media the most had lower scores,” Nagata notes, “but even those who used low social media had smaller differences in cognitive scores.”

“This really speaks to the dosed effect of these [apps]”, says the psychologist. Linge at the University of Calgary, who wrote accompanying editorial for study. “It's problematic with very heavy use, but it's also problematic even in small doses.”

While differences in test scores of a few points may seem small, “it's important to understand that children are a moving target,” explains Prinstein, who is also Head of the Department of Psychology of Strategy and Integration at the American Psychological Association.

“Even a small change in how they look after a short period of time means that they now seem to be on a different trajectory from others. This means that in two, three, five years we can talk about very significant differences between children who may have been heavy consumers or not so heavy consumers.”

AND other recent studies shows that during adolescence, the number of hours spent on social networks increases, says Nagata. “We expect that when they get to 15, 16, 17 years old, their use will be much higher,” which could lead to even larger gaps in cognition and learning in later years, he adds.

In earlier studies, Nagata's team used the same data from the ABCD study and found other troubling trends among underage social media users.

They found that most children Almost two thirds start using social media before they turn 13, with the average user having three social media accounts.

They also found high level of addiction-like symptoms with smartphones among children aged 10 to 14 years.

“Half of the kids who had smartphones said they forget how long they use the phone,” Nagata says. “A quarter of those who use social media say they use social media to forget about their problems. And 11% say that using social media has had a negative impact on their studies.”

Important time for brain development

Adolescence is a critical period for brain development, Prinstein notes, when the brain refines its architecture based on experience.

“After the first year of life, adolescence is the time when we see the most growth and the most reorganization of the brain in our lifetime,” he says.

IN recent studyPrinstein and his colleagues found that teens who actively use social media have brains better suited to social media with its “fast and constant feedback,” Prinstein says. “We found that children become hypersensitive to the likes, comments, feedback and rewards they can receive from their peers.”

These findings help explain the new research, he adds. “It makes perfect sense that if their brain is growing and being optimized for social media activities, it might not be optimized for other things they need to do, as we saw in [new] study.”

The new study also “gives us pretty strong evidence that we really need to have policies that are really specific about setting age restrictions on, for example, social media apps,” Madigan says.

Denmark announced last week that it plans to introduce ban on social networks for users under 15 years of age– she notes. Australia requires social media companies to “take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or maintaining accounts” from December 2025.

Madigan hopes other countries will take note. “I think we will see a small effect from this. This will be very useful for the children.”