Why children aged 12 to 13 are at the highest risk, according to a decade-long study
Updated ,first published
Children aged 12 to 13 are most at risk of developing mental health problems due to heavy use of social media, with an alarming decline in their psychological health seen after just one year.
These are the findings of a landmark 10-year study led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Australian Medical JournalResearch examining the behavior and mental health of nearly 1200 Melbourne children.
Researchers found that between ages 12 and 13, the dangers of using social media for two hours or more a day increase sharply, especially among girls.
For every 100 girls in this age group who used social media for at least two hours a day, there were approximately 11 additional cases of elevated depressive symptoms and poorer health a year later, compared with their peers who used less than an hour a day.
Cognitive neuroscientist from Deakin University and lead investigator of the study, Dr. Risk peaks in early adolescence, Nandi Vijayakumar said, including the onset of puberty and the beginning of a period in which girls become increasingly sensitive to peer approval and exclusion.
“This is the period when young people often first begin using social media and learning how to navigate online interactions, but it is also a period of rapid brain development and significant social changes,” said Vijayakumar.
The parts of the brain responsible for emotional regulation are also still maturing, which means teens may be less equipped to manage the tougher aspects of social media, such as social comparisons and bullying, he said.
“While the effects at the individual level may be modest because this condition is so common among adolescents, even modest increases in risk could translate into potentially meaningful effects at the population level,” said Vijayakumar.
While the findings are concerning for parents, researchers say the study also identifies a critical age range for intervention.
Melbourne teenager Lauren Linton was 12 when the city went into coronavirus lockdown and her online usage had skyrocketed. He was left to communicate with his friends via social media, including the Snapchat app. It was difficult and increased his anxiety.
“I remember there was quite a bit of bullying and drama and some of the girls would have group chats and exclude other girls,” Linton said.
“You were so young then. At an age when all you really want to do is fit in, you don’t really understand the huge impact that leaving someone out like that can have on someone.”
Linton and her friend Kyra Prosser grew up using social media.
They said it gets easier to navigate as they get older, and they still spend hours a day on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram. Both said they have their positives and negatives.
“It has become the only way we can stay in touch during the pandemic,” Prosser said. “We still use it all the time now to chat or make plans to see others.”
The research found that boys aged 12 to 13 also face deterioration in their mental health if they use social media for more than two hours a day.
The researchers observed an additional seven cases of higher depressive symptoms and poorer mental health per 100 boys compared with those who limited their online time to less than an hour per day.
The research focused on the years 2015 to 2021, when the children were between 12 and 18 years old.
The findings come six months after Australia introduced its controversial social media ban on under-16s and as debate continues over whether it has been successful in helping protect young people online.
While critics argue that many young people still use social media and restrictions are difficult to enforce, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has sided with the federal government, saying it is “not really keen” on the imprint and that it is based on legislation drafted “too quickly”.
The data shows that the ban has not been very effective so far; Approximately 70 percent of children who had accounts on Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube before the ban still use these accounts.
Prosser, who turned 18 in March, said his mother imposed a screen time limit on him, which automatically closed his apps after three hours.
But he said most of the young people he knows under the age of 16 have found ways to get around the social ban.
The research found that all children in early adolescence are considered most vulnerable between the ages of 12 and 13, but their psychological distress manifests in slightly different ways.
For girls ages 12 to 13, excessive scrolling and social media activity were linked to the greatest overall risk of depression, anxiety and feelings of poor health.
However, boys of the same age who spent hours of the day on the internet were found to be at slightly higher risk of self-harming behavior than girls.
This is despite the fact that girls are generally at higher risk of harming themselves than boys throughout most of their adolescence.
The results support focusing on early adolescence as a critical window for intervention, Vijayakumar said.
“Early adolescence stands out as a time when higher levels of social media use are linked to a greater risk of mental health problems a year later,” he said.
“Although the increases in risk in our study were modest, even small effects can have significant public health consequences when large numbers of young people are exposed. Therefore, early adolescence may be the most important period for intervention.”
However, he stated that the risk continues after early adolescence and suggested that age-based restrictions alone may not be sufficient.
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Professor Susan Sawyer, who led the research, said the findings supported the need for a balanced approach to social media policies.
“Concerns about the impact of social media on adolescent mental health have sparked community and policy discussions globally and driven Australia’s world-first social media legislation,” he said. “Despite all this, solid evidence for population-level effects remains limited, making our findings particularly important.”
He noted that many adolescents reported positive experiences with social media, including a sense of belonging and self-expression.
But high levels of mental health problems, cyberbullying and exposure to harmful online content have sparked widespread alarm.
Spending more than 2.5 hours a day online is the norm for most teens, Sawyer said.
“Our results do not show that social media is universally harmful, but it does have some harm,” Sawyer said.
“It reinforces the need for age-appropriate boundaries, better education and literacy programs, and clearer parental guidance.”
Daniel Donahoo, of anti-bullying group Project Rockit, said that although longitudinal studies like this were crucial to informing decisions made by regulators, there was a risk of underestimating how self-aware and knowledgeable young people are.
“We act like young people aren’t actively thinking about how they use social media, but in our experience working with hundreds of thousands of young people in schools, they’re actually thinking pretty deeply and critically about it,” he said.
“They’re also thinking about issues like climate change and artificial intelligence. It’s really hard being a young person now, but they seem to really understand the complexity of the world they live in.”
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Melissa Cunningham is The Age’s health correspondent. He has previously covered crime and justice issues.Connect with: X or email.
