Today, we live in a time of great debate around Instagram, TikTok or X, wondering if they really negatively affect our minors, with several governments promoting the possibility of banning them, including Spanish. Now, a new study longitudinal has shed light on the true impact that using social networks can have on mental health, pointing to a much more complex scenario than we think.
The study. It has been a team from the Miguel Hernández University that has decided to put the focus precisely on social networks at a time when research paints a very worrying picture. But in this case wanted to put the focus in the nuances that should really matter to us: age, gender and mental health status prior to entering the world of social networks. And its conclusions change the classical conception.
It’s not how much, but how. Until recently, the most classic concept to measure danger was “screen time.” In this way, different reviews suggested that spending more hours in front of the cell phone was equivalent to having a worse well-being. But the UMH research goes a step further and focuses on how networks interfere with daily life, sleep or personal relationships.
Here the most striking finding that the research team saw was that the impact of this problematic use on depressive symptoms has a very clear boundary: 16 years.
But it fades. Although researchers have observed that increased depressive symptoms It is much more acute in those under 16 years of age, it has also been seen that around this age the effect diminishes. The reason that marks 16 years as a true frontier is precisely the greater capacity for emotional and cognitive self-regulation that adolescents have as they mature little by little.
In this way, young people from the age of 16 become less vulnerable to the negative impacts of the digital environment, something pointed out by other external studies that already warned that early pre-adolescence is the true critical period of exposure to social networks as they are more sensitive.
A gender gap. Another worrying point raised by science is how digital popularity affects depending on whether the teenager is a boy or a girl. And right now we live in the era of followers where anything is done to see how our accounts have more and more followers. And while it may seem like having more followers is a positive reinforcement for any teen, the data says otherwise.
The researchers point out here that having a greater number of followers is associated with a greater number of depressive symptoms, and especially in girls. The reasons lie in the pressure to maintain a perfect image, the fear of being analyzed down to the last detail and, logically, the cybervictimization. A set of factors that act as a toxic cocktail towards mental health.
In the boys. Here, having many followers has a neutral or even somewhat protective effect, operating as a status enhancer within a group of friends, for example. That is, the complete opposite of girls, marking a gender gap that has also been investigated by other third-party studies that already warned that the mental health of minors is much more susceptible to the dynamics of online validation.
Previous vulnerability. Do social networks depress you or were teenagers already depressed? This is the question we can ask ourselves when addressing this complex issue, and science indicates that adolescents who already suffered from a previous vulnerability before using the networks are the most susceptible. In this way, if a young person already presents depressive symptoms, their evolution will be significantly worse if they develop problematic use of networks.
In these cases, the screen becomes a true refuge that ends up worsening the original picture when exposed to a large number of people or by consuming negative content.
What should we do? The great conclusion that can be drawn here is that We must protect preteens as they are the most vulnerable, and also give priority attention to girls because they suffer much greater aesthetic and validation pressure. This is where governments come in with the regulations that are already being put on the table to prevent these most vulnerable young people from being exposed to something that can be so harmful.
Images | Johnny Cohen
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