Increased Social Media Use Causes Adolescent Girls to Manifest Lesser Life Satisfaction Earlier

According to a study, social media's effects on adolescent girls' mental health manifest earlier than in adolescent boys. Based on the research conducted, the impact on the mental health of young adolescent girls happens as early as 11 to 13, while boys' mental well-being is most vulnerable at around 14 to 15 years old.

Although the study does not directly prove that social media is harmful to a person's well-being, the researchers suspect a prospect of a "window of vulnerability" in adolescent age.

Increased Social Media Usage

Psychologists who conducted the research discovered that young adolescents who increased their social media time one year later were less satisfied with their lives. This happened to girls within the age bracket of 11 to 13, and for young boys, the same trend manifested in boys within the 14 to 15.

The researchers did not find a link between social media use and well-being at different ages except at 19 years old for other ages. Similarly, the higher the social media use, the lesser the life satisfaction in both sexes, as reported in The Guardian.

Dr. Amy Orben, an experimental psychologist and first author of the research at the University of Cambridge, expressed that the researchers can determine or predict at which ages and which among the sexes social media has a significant effect on the well-being or life satisfaction of individuals.

Dr. Orben and her colleagues analyzed the Understanding Society study and the Millennium Cohort Study data. The information from the reported use of social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp from 84,000 individuals enrolled in either study, showed that social media use affects these individuals' mental health and well-being.

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Mental Health Problems at a Young Age

The researcher's goal was to shed some light on the relationship between the alarming rise in mental health issues and whether or not these are related to the increased usage of social media in young people. The researchers have discovered a two-way effect and that at certain ages, increased social media use was linked to lower life satisfaction. In contrast, low-life satisfaction was linked to more significant social media use the year later.

Dr. Holly Scott, a psychologist at the University of Glasgow, said that the new evidence could be used to understand varied sensitive periods between girls and boys, similar to the earlier puberty in girls than in boys. In addition, the findings also show that it is crucial to understand the adolescent perspective and the benefits and challenges of social media use.

According to the charity Young Minds, five children in every classroom are now affected with mental health problems. Based on their report, many children aged five to 16 suffer from mental health problems. The figure has increased to 50 percent between 2017 to 2021. 

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