We know so little about how social media affects kids' brains
The American Psychological Association has issued its first advisory on social media use in adolescence. What's most striking in its data-based recommendations is how little we really know about how these apps affect our kids.
The relative newness of platforms like Snapchat and TikTok means little research is available about their long-term effects on teen and tween brains. Getting better data will require significant funding — and much more transparency from tech companies.
Perhaps a lack of clear data is one reason that so much of the conversation around social media and kids leans on our personal experiences and attitudes. And so much of the available data is murky: There's plenty of correlative evidence that platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram can have a negative effect on kids' development, but very little causal data.
That doesn't mean that our assumptions about social media's deleterious effects on kids aren't true, or that parents don't have cause to worry. But it has led to an all-or-nothing discourse that often ignores the reality that social media isn't going away.
The APA report wisely turns our attention to what we do and don't know about tween and teens' relationships with social media — and is a call to action for more research into how powerful technology could be reshaping social development. “It's time to get the science out,” says Mitch Prinstein, the APA's chief science officer.
What little evidence we do have unsurprisingly suggests that social media trades on incentives that aren't great for young brains. Many kids' first exposure to social media occurs “at the worst possible time when it comes to brain development,” says Prinstein, a psychologist and neuroscientist who studies adolescents'
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