New Study Links Teen Boys' ADHD Symptoms To Addictive Social Media Use (msn.com) 24
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," reports the Washington Post:
The study followed more than 11,000 U.S. 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... "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...." [said Jason Nagata, lead author of the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco]. 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 7 million American children between the ages of 3 and 17 have received an ADHD diagnosis, according to the Centers 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, 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...
[I]t'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," Nagata said.
Approximately 7 million American children between the ages of 3 and 17 have received an ADHD diagnosis, according to the Centers 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, 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...
[I]t'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," Nagata said.
What about long hours of gaming? (Score:3)
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You're probably applied a wrong link there, because the one thing people with ADHD are definitely not known for is doing the one unchanging task for as long as possible.
On the other hand autists are well known to experience long duration obsessive behaviour.
Re: What about long hours of gaming? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: What about long hours of gaming? (Score:3)
Some ADHD can exhibit hyper focus, some lack of focus in most things, some have a nearly infinitely shifting focus. Bad cases forget to eat, go to the loo and or sleep...the specifics are more individual than some script that any person with ADHD behaves in mostly the same way.
Learning to curb and mitigate the impulsiveness does he
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"It's an intention disorder, not an attention disorder". People with ADHD struggle with executive function. Their problem isn't that they can't focus, it's that they don't get to pick what they focus on.
Re: What about long hours of gaming? (Score:2)
Start treatment early? (Score:2)
Perhaps they can use the social media use as an indication of later developing ADHD, and start treatment earlier. /s
Cause or effect? (Score:2)
Doesn't matter which is which, since the "treatment" to rein in the disabling extremes of ADHD would still include limiting social media.
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Both. It's best thought of as a positive feedback loop.
No shit, Sherlock! (Score:3)
Disclaimer: ADHD candidate here.
I could write an entire set of essays on what we currently know about ADHD here but it basically boils down to this:
ADHDlers have a hightened sensitivity towards their value for people around them. So we go about our day constantly scanning for dopamine spikes or true connection. I need my medication the least when I'm in love with a cute lady (and she is with me). Given that through evolution men are more disposable than women the sense of self-worth is challenged way more often in boys and men that it is with women. Especially in a time where robots are doing more and more of the heavy lifting and masculinity is considered "toxic". Hence excessive male escapism, especially with male teens and those with perpetual creative impulses (aka ADHD types). If we didn't have this sort of escapism, fascism would've long since taken over way harder than it's doing right now.
I'm either dancing, moving around, escaping at one of my computer devices or doing some (somewhat) exotic activity thing like kitesurfing, paragliding, motorbike riding, scating, bikepacking, etc. This is SOP for an ADHD man like me.
The whole trick is not to feel guilt or toxic shame when you do escapism. You're actually doing very little damage to anybody else, it's cheap and it's a perfect fit for a society that has an abundance of stimulation just an internet connection away. Overcoming that involves actively working on your attachment style, abandonment terror and any shame-based identity that many people have. Once that happens, going out, roaming the countryside or travelling the world suddenly becomes way more interesting. Which is precisely for what the ADHD disposition brings some advantages along.
That ADHDlers are more prone to this or it's mental fallback alternative called escapism than people with a stronger frontal lobe should be obvious.
That's not an ADHD problem. (Score:2)
You're correctly describing a phenomenon. However, that has nothing to do with ADHD and everything to do with gyno-centric social dynamics that - by sheer evo-psych - looks for ways to exploit men. This is how cultures grow and develop. There's quite a bit of research on that [roybaumeister.com] (neatly sidelined by contemporary mainstream femnoise).
Bottom line: The problem you describe is a fundamental one that exists for ADHD males as it does for "regular" males. It's only that ADHD males are perhaps more sensitive to these
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They might drop by a little, but honestly not by much. Boys are mildly overdiagnosed for the reasons you give (but few places still medicate), girls are however massively underdiagnosed.
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I never got myself into the whole "masculinity" obsession, even back in the 70s and 80s. The result of this was a discovery that computers launched me head-first through far fewer windows and pelted me with far fewer rocks. So, yeah, I was definitely seen as disposable though my childhood and teen years by pretty much everyone. (It's one reason anyone looking back at those as "golden years" is unlikely to win me over.)
Escapism is pretty much all I had at the time, and these days remains pretty much all I ha
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Cool. I've never read a description before. It's always been an etherial label.
Reading what you've written, I'd probably put myself in the complete opposite box. Not impressed by nor desiring a lot of activities nor interactions. I hate parties for example. I like being alone and idle. Makes me feel calm.
I imagine I'd fit right in doing the Zen thing if I had any motivation for it. :)
I'm certain everyone will apologize (Score:2)
Why only boys? (Score:2)
I wonder if the fact that male brains mature later than female brains has anything to do with the gender discrepancy in this study.
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It isn't. The under-diagnosis of girls is astronomical.
You are assuming ADHD is a new thing. No, it isn't. It is a survival thing. ADHD was critical in a very large percentage of the population for the bulk of the last 350,000 years. Without it, humanity would have gone extinct. It's merely not appropriate in a world in which neurotypicals make neurodiverse solutions a "bad thing".
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No, it's more likely that girls and women learned to mask symptoms early for survival reasons.
If you look at hunter-gatherer societies, ADHD is paramount to survival because it avoids over-harvesting. Too little ADHD produces cultures prone to driving plants and/or animals extinct. ADHD is a critical stop-gap that prevents this. Studies show ADHD gatherers will not only collect more, they will do so in ways that cause far less damage, resulting in a far better second harvest and far better sustainability.
In
So social media prepares them for their future? (Score:2)
Bull-fucking-shit. (Score:3)
ADHD has been around for longer than the last 40 years. It isn't social media, or video games that cause ADHD, it is just one way that us with ADHD have chased the dopamine. If these 2 didn't exist, we'd be chasing it some other way.
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Replace the word "addictive" with "obsessive" and the whole article actually makes sense.
People that have a predisposition for ADHD are easily drawn into obsessing over online political discourse. Particularly in the highly change social media setting.
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err, highly charged ...