THE WASHINGTON POST: New study links ADHD symptoms in boys and addictive social media use

The adolescent boys indicated in the questionnaire that they found themselves frequently thinking about social media.

They wanted to use it less often, but felt unable to stop.

A year later, when their parents were asked about their children’s behaviour, those same boys were more likely to demonstrate rising symptoms of ADHD.

This finding, from a new study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, adds to growing research linking increased social media use to detrimental effects on attention, memory and cognition.

Particularly where children are concerned, researchers have long sought to understand the dynamic between youth mental health and their online activity.

UCSF’s new study, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, suggests that addictive social media use among adolescent boys could contribute to worsening ADHD symptoms.

The study followed more than 11,000 US adolescents over a period of five years, with participants first asked about their own social media use at the average age of 12, and surveyed annually through the average age of 16.

Researchers found that increases in addictive social media use were followed by rising ADHD one year later — particularly among boys who reported rising addictive social media use at ages 14 and 15.

This association was not found consistently in reverse, meaning that ADHD symptoms did not appear to precede higher levels of addictive social media use.

“This isn’t a randomised control test, so we can’t definitively prove causation,” said Jason Nagata, lead author of the study and an associate professor of paediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco, “but we can show that the association tends to go in that one direction.”

Addictive social media use (also referred to as problematic social media use) shares similar symptoms to substance addiction, “including withdrawal, tolerance, relapse and impaired control,” Dr Nagata said.

In this scenario, a teen often feels they can’t limit the amount of time they spend on social media — and when they try, it causes further distress or conflict, Dr Nagata said.

A teen might find that their social media use is interfering with their sleep, their schoolwork, or their relationships with friends and family.

Among the survey respondents at age 12, Dr Nagata said, about 23 per cent said that they spent a lot of time thinking about social media use, or planning future social media use; about 18 per cent said they used social media apps to forget about their problems; and about 15 per cent said they tried to use their social media apps less, but found they could not.

The parents of those children were subsequently surveyed about symptoms they had observed in their children.

For instance, they were asked how often their children failed to finish things they started; could not concentrate or pay attention; struggled to sit still; or behaved impulsively.

Some of the adolescents in the study already demonstrated ADHD symptoms at age 12, Dr Nagata noted, while others did not.

The findings reflect individual changes over time, he explained: “When an individual adolescent’s addictive social media use score increased from one year to the next, that same adolescent tended to show an increase in ADHD symptoms in the following year.”

The new study suggests that parents should take note of how teens are using social media, rather than just how often they’re online.

“Most parents are very focused on total screen time, but this is more about specific red flags” and patterns of problematic use, Dr Nagata said.

He urged parents to consider: “Can their kids stop if they want to? Is social media interfering with their schoolwork? Is it impairing their social relationships? Are there addiction-like symptoms, like withdrawal and relapse?”

Approximately seven million American children between the ages of 3 and 17 have received an ADHD diagnosis, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and boys are diagnosed with ADHD at about twice the rate of girls.

The study did not find a clear link between addictive social media use and ADHD among girls, Dr Nagata said.

“Some studies do suggest that teenage boys in particular may be more sensitive to immediate reward and sensation-seeking in adolescence,” he said.

And social media platforms are designed to provide exactly that: “It encourages frequent task-switching, and there’s this constant stream of stimulation that might make it harder for adolescents to maintain and sustain attention that is needed for schoolwork and daily life,” he said.

“The design features of social media offer the constant reinforcement of impulsivity — it offers immediate gratification and novelty and it encourages multitasking, which can then override working memory and executive control.”

Experts have long noted that this kind of digital exposure is particularly significant during critical stages of mental, social-emotional and cognitive development.

“For kids and teens who are still developing, they are more vulnerable to influence,” said Judy Chu, a developmental psychologist and the author of When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity.

“It’s hard to deny that screen time is going to impact attention and focus.”

Anecdotally, she added, she has heard similar reports from her college-age students, regarding their compulsive social media use and its effect on their attention.

“They talk about how they have to really, actively make an effort to not be sucked in,” she said.

“Even adults can’t really resist it. So it’s really hard to expect young people to put phones down and walk away.”

The UCSF researchers analysed data from the national Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which includes a racially and economically diverse sample of children who are participating in the largest long-term study of brain development and child health conducted in the US.

This is significant, Dr Nagata noted, because much of the prior research about the associations between social media use and children’s mental health might capture only one particular moment in a child’s experience — “a single snapshot in time,” Dr Nagata said, versus the opportunity to follow changes in a child’s life over a period of years.

This latest study builds on previous findings by Dr Nagata’s research team indicating that more frequent social media use among tweens and teens is linked to subsequent mental health or cognitive issues including symptoms of depression as well as lower cognitive performance.

The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends that families create a media plan for the household, and Dr Nagata noted that having dedicated “screen-free zones” has shown to help reduce addictive social media use.

Eliminating screens in a child’s bedroom is particularly beneficial, he said, as are screen-free family mealtimes.

And it’s especially important for parents themselves to demonstrate a healthier relationship with screens and social media.

“One of our previous findings was that parental screen use is a very strong predictor of kids’ screen use,” Dr Nagata said.

“So I think that’s really important — that not only do you set rules, but you have to follow the rules, too, and be a good role model.”