SHAH ALAM – A new, major four-year study has found that children who spend significant time on social media are more likely to experience a gradual decline in their attention span, raising fresh concerns about the long-term impact of digital platforms on young minds.
The effect was seen specifically among users of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, and did not occur among children who watched television or played video games.
Researchers tracked more than 8,000 children to record the findings.
Published in Pediatrics Open Science, the comprehensive study adds substantial evidence to concerns about how prolonged screen exposure may be affecting cognitive development.
A total of 8,324 children aged between 10 and 14 were monitored by researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet and the Oregon Health & Science University in the United States.
Parents evaluated their children’s inattentiveness, while the children reported their daily time spent on social media, television or videos, and video games.
The results showed a clear link between heavy social media use and a gradual increase in concentration difficulties.
“Our study suggests that it is specifically social media that affects children’s ability to concentrate.
“Social media entails constant distractions in the form of messages and notifications, and the mere thought of whether a message has arrived can act as a mental distraction,” said Torkel Klingberg, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.
Researchers also stated that the pattern did not work in reverse: children who already struggled with attention did not increase their use of social media.
While the individual-level effects on each child were small, researchers cautioned that the impact could be significant at a population scale.
“Greater consumption of social media might explain part of the increase we’re seeing in ADHD diagnoses,” Klingberg said, although he pointed out that the study did not identify an increase in hyperactivity.
The team stressed that their findings do not imply that all children on social media will develop attention problems.
However, they said the data should encourage serious discussions on age restrictions and the design of digital platforms.
Despite many platforms setting a minimum age of 13, the study showed that average daily social media use rose sharply, from 30 minutes among nine-year-olds to 2.5 hours by age 13.
“We hope that our findings will help parents and policymakers make well-informed decisions on healthy digital consumption that support children’s cognitive development,” said the study’s first author, Samson Nivins.