Sir, – After outlining the growing expert consensus fears over the harmful effects of social media on adolescent brain and mental health (“Social media has a limited effect on teenage mental health”, Opinion & Analysis, January 13th), Eoin Whelan cites a large US study, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, and states that it has found no evidence of harmful effect associated with digital technology.
This is simply not the case. A subset of data from the ABCD paper is published in Academic Paediatrics this very month and showed that 69.5 per cent of 11 to 15 years olds had at least one social media account, while 63.8 per cent of participants under 13 years old reported social media use with an average of 3.4 different social media accounts. The authors reiterate that: “unregulated access to social media in early adolescents may pose a particular concern within this population”, and that “early adolescent social media use in the ABCD study is associated with poor sleep, substance use initiation, cyberbullying and eating disorders”. They also reference work documenting association between adolescent screen use and both anxiety and depression.
The column also quotes a Lancet editorial, which asserts the need to balance consideration of the myriad other factors known to affect adolescent mental health, and not simply that all is attributable to smartphone use. The conclusion is that more research is needed. Not that there is nothing to see here.
Eoin Whelan describes how mind-set may be a determinant in the subjective experience of whether social media use is positive or harmful to the individual. It is worth pointing out that the research he references from the Stanford Media Lab was carried out in adults from 18 to 81 years of age and did not study children.
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This is an emotive and important issue for parents. There is need for accuracy when attempting to summarise evidence on complex public health issues. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN McHUGH, MD
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology,
Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin,
Dublin 12.