Social Media Use Is Linked To Brain Changes In Teens, Research Finds

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: 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 puzzle, 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, published on Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics, is among the first attempts to capture changes to brain function correlated with social media use over a period of years. 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." "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. "What if these people joined a new team -- a hockey team or a volleyball team -- so started getting a lot more social interaction?" he said. It could be, he added, that the researchers are "picking up on the development of extroversion, and extroverts are more likely to check their social media." 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. "There are people who have a neurological state that means they are more likely to be attracted to checking frequently," he said. "We're not all the same, and we should stop thinking that social media is the same for everyone."

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