IT is no secret that frequent social media use can have a negative impact on mental health and wellbeing, especially for young people.
Now, researchers have discovered that it only takes two hours a day of 'doomscrolling' (mindlessly consuming social media content) before teenagers' risk of anxiety doubles, and their likelihood of depression quadruples.
Excessive screen time leads to heightened anxiety, depression, aggression and impulsiveness among adolescents, Canadian researchers found.
Forty-five percent of the 12 to 17-year-olds who took part in a recent nine-month study experienced psychiatric symptoms that required further medical evaluation - despite the teens having no prior mental health conditions.
The researchers found that passive scrolling by far had the strongest negative influence on adolescents, compared to other screen-use behaviours such as frequency, total time, and posting content on social media.
"It is much higher than we would expect to see," said Prof. Emma Duerden, Canada's research chair in neuroscience and learning disorders.
"Before COVID, rates of anxiety in adolescents were between 8 and 15 percent.
"Now, we see almost half of the sample size reporting heightened anxiety, which is alarming," Duerden added.
She suggested restricting screen time to two hours a day.
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