New research on social media
Today, I present one statement and two studies related to media use. First, from the APA website (2024) “APA Report Calls on Social Media Companies to Take Responsibility to Protect Youth.” Here’s the text with some portions in bold:
“Raising age of social media permissions not sufficient, APA says
WASHINGTON — Almost a year after the American Psychological Association issued a landmark health advisory on social media use in adolescence,
technology companies and policymakers still have made few meaningful changes, forcing society to continue to search for ways to maximize the benefits of these platforms while protecting youth from their harms.
“Social media platforms know that the answer is to structurally correct harmful design features and functions. Most children and adolescents lack the experience, judgment and self-control to manage their behaviors on these platforms, which is why we see over 50% reporting at least one symptom of clinical dependency on social media today,” said Mitch Prinstein, PhD, APA’s chief science officer. “Age restrictions alone are not the answer, since kids find ways around them. And putting the responsibility solely on parents is not fair either. The developers must address the dangers inherent in these platforms and make their products safe for youth.”
APA has issued a new report as a follow-up to its 2023 health advisory focusing on social media design features and functions built into these platforms that are inherently unsafe for youth. The new report points to the psychological threats these features and functions introduce and the developmental vulnerabilities they exploit.
“Policies will not protect youth unless technology companies are required to reduce the risks embedded within the platforms themselves,” the report says. “As policymakers at every level assess their approach to this complex issue, it is important to note the limitations of frequently proposed policies, which are often misreported and fall far short of comprehensive safety solutions that will achieve meaningful change.”
APA calls for comprehensive design improvements to social media platforms to inform safety standards for at least four reasons:
Creating a bright line age limit ignores individual differences in adolescents’ maturity and competency;
Such proposals fail to mitigate the harms for those above the age limit and can lead to a perception that social media is safe for adolescents above the threshold age, although neurological changes may continue until age 25;
Limiting access to social media may disadvantage those who get psychological benefits from social media platforms, such as peer support and access to science-based resources, which particularly impact those in marginalized populations;
Age verification must also ensure that the storage of official identification documents does not exclude subsets of youth, create risks for leaks, or circumvent the ability of young people to maintain anonymity on social platforms.
Addressing the role of parents, it says: “More robust and easy-to-use parental controls would help some younger age groups, but as a sole strategy, this approach ignores the complexities of adolescent development, the importance of childhood autonomy and privacy, and disparities in time or resources available for monitoring across communities.”
“Delegating responsibility to parents, to app stores or to youth themselves does not address the vulnerabilities and harms built into the platforms,” said Mary Ann McCabe, PhD, co-chair of the expert panel that put together the 2023 health advisory. “That responsibility sits with the creators and purveyors of these technologies—the platform developers themselves.”
I thought this provides strong arguments for better controls over media access. The next study provides another argument. APA Monitor (June 2024) published “Screen Time Disrupts Sensory Responses.” Here’s the text, again with some in bold:
Research in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that excessive exposure to digital media in the formative years might influence how children perceive and respond to their surroundings. Researchers measured the responses of 1,471 children in the United States to sensory experiences in their environment, categorizing their responses into four primary patterns: low registration (not noticing sensory stimuli), sensation seeking (actively seeking sensory stimuli), sensory sensitivity (being easily irritated by sensory stimuli), and sensation avoiding (actively avoiding sensory stimuli). The researchers then measured screen exposure (daily hours averaged over the previous month) using caregiver-reported data at 12, 18, and 24 months of age.
They found that children who watched television or videos at 12 months had twice the risk of being in the high category for low registration compared with those who did not. As the children aged, greater screen time at 18 months was linked to more frequent low registration and sensation avoiding, a pattern where children actively try to limit sensory exposure. By 24 months, higher screen time was linked to more frequent sensation seeking, sensory sensitivity, and sensation avoiding behaviors.
This is a large sample with what I see as very scary findings, especially for anyone who wants to work with or educate children. Finally, Tuck & Thompson (2024) published “Types of Social Media Use Are Differentially Associated with Trait and Momentary Affect” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:
Research on how social media use (SMU) is associated with emotion is equivocal, possibly because the factor structure of SMU had not been adequately identified. Prior research has found support for four SMU types: belief-based (e.g., sharing opinions), comparison-based (e.g., body comparison), image-based (e.g., monitoring likes), and consumption-based (e.g., watching videos). In this study, we examined how participants’ weekly engagement in each SMU type was associated with trait affect and how engagement in each type in real time was related to changes in momentary affect. A total of 382 college students in the spring of 2022 reported on the extent to which they engaged in each SMU type over the last week and their trait affect. They also engaged in each SMU type (randomized) for 3 min, rating their affect before and after. Only comparison-based SMU showed the same pattern of associations at trait and momentary levels, being associated with lower positive affect and higher negative affect (NA) at both timescales. Image- and consumption-based SMU were associated with higher trait NA, but resulted in people feeling better in real time. Belief-based SMU was associated with higher trait positive affect and NA, but made people feel worse in real time. Understanding how SMU types are associated with emotional experiences depends on the timeframe. Findings hold important implications for research examining how SMU is associated with mental health and well-being.
This is a much older group. Clearly, comparison-based social media use is most unhealthy, with image- and consumption-based SMU related to negative affect but made people feel better. I find it interesting that it is belief-based SMU that is related most to positive affect but momentary affect becomes more negative over time. Taken together, each of these pieces suggests the need for more research on kinds of social media use and their impacts.