Students who start using social media at a young age generally do worse in school than students who start using social media later.
The earlier a child creates an account, the greater the negative impact. This is what Italian researchers concluded in a scientific journal natural human behavior. According to a study in northern Italy, early adopters of social media performed significantly worse than their peers who delayed using such apps.
By the way, young people in the Netherlands are sometimes disappointed with the existence of social media, writes MRT Earlier. A related survey was conducted among young people aged 15 and above. Sometimes people say, “It shouldn’t have been invented at all.”
Early social media users were bad at math
But hey, social media is here to stay. Therefore, Italian researchers studied the academic performance of children who opened their first social media account in Group 8 of primary school, and of teenagers who only opened their first social media account in the second year of secondary school. The students in the class are about 14 years old: the age at which children are first allowed to use social media under Italian law. A majority of Dutch people believe that children under 15 should be banned from using social media.
The study found that early adopters of social media scored lower than their peers in both Italian and math. The earlier an account is created on an app like Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, the greater the negative impact. According to some calculations, the worst-case outcome amounts to a six-month delay in learning, the researchers said.
English subjects seem to be a special case
No negative correlation was found for English subjects. Scientists say this may be because much of the content on social media is also in English.
The use of social media by young people is an important theme in many European countries. Some governments, including the Netherlands, have announced that they will raise the minimum age to 15 or 16 years. The European Union is also working on a plan.
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