Social media use may have different effects on wellbeing in adolescent boys and girls, according to a recent research.Researchers at the University of Essex and UCL found an association between increased time spent on social media in early adolescence (age 10) and reduced wellbeing in later adolescence (age 10-15) - but only among girls. The authors found that adolescent girls used social media more than boys and social media interaction increased with age for both boys and girls. By age 15, both genders increased their social media use but girls continued to use social media more than boys, with 59% of girls and 46% of boys interacting on social media for one or more hours per day. A total of 9,859 UK adolescents aged 10 to 15 yearscompleted questions on how many hours they spent interacting on social media sites on a typical school day. The authors caution that because the study used the self-report data and only social media interactions on school days were recorded, the associations between social media and wellbeing may have been underestimated.The study is published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.

Source: dna March 20, 2018 01:52 UTC