Boys Social Media Use Linked to ADHD
Researchers have found a strong link between social media addiction and ADHD in boys, according to a recent study published on JAMA Network Open. The study, which tracked over 11,000 kids aged 10 and over, discovered that teens who spent too much time on social media were more likely to show signs of ADHD as they got older.
The team of experts, based at the University of California, San Francisco, reported that the link between social media addiction and ADHD was especially strong in boys. They found that for every increase in social media addiction score, there was a corresponding increase in ADHD scores, but with a delay of around a year or more.
The study suggests that the quirks in the brain that cause ADHD can also make individuals more vulnerable to getting hooked on social media. Social media platforms are designed to maximize the amount of time users spend on them, using techniques such as reward responses to keep users engaged.
Researchers suspect that these neuroscience-fueled attention hacks can be particularly problematic for individuals with ADHD, making it harder for them to control their social media use. Kids who report problematic social media use describe a loss of control that makes it very hard to cut down on use.
The San Francisco-based doctors extracted data from the University of California, San Diego’s Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. This huge cohort study tracked brain development of US-based children to help learn more about developmental trajectories and neural signatures of mental health through adolescence.
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Brain scientists and psychologists collected brain scans, diagnostic questionnaires, and other neurodevelopmental information from kids starting between 2016 and 2018, with regular check-ins over the next six years to 2023. The team performed a multivariate regression analysis to look for associations between ADHD traits and problematic social media use.
The team used difficulty in quitting social media instead of hours spent on social media to measure addiction. They were also following the kids for as long as six years, allowing them to form a long-term picture of how social media addiction and ADHD interact.
Social media addiction is pretty uncommon, with children mostly scoring fairly low on the social media addiction scale. However, when the social media score increased, ADHD scores took a year or more to catch up, suggesting that an increase in problematic social media use predicted an increase in ADHD symptom severity years later.
The study’s findings have important implications for parents and caregivers of children with ADHD. By being aware of the potential link between social media addiction and ADHD, they can take steps to help their child manage their social media use and reduce the risk of problematic behavior.
Problematic social media use is not fun, and kids who report it say they are unhappy and it’s making their life more difficult. If the evidence shows that boys who are eventually diagnosed with ADHD have a harder time quitting social media when they want to, that is something for parents to keep in mind, and they can also encourage their kids to engage in other activities, such as brain games, to help improve their thinking skills.
