Young people’s immature brain can be affected by networks – 05/27/2023 – Health

“I get desperate,” says 14-year-old Daniela (not her real name) about when she doesn’t have access to the internet. She, who lives in Americana, in the interior of São Paulo, claims to believe that she has developed an addiction to social networks.

It is common for teenagers to spend hours a day swiping their finger on the cell phone screen. At first, she secretly created new accounts, but today she has her parents’ permission. She says that short video apps, like TikTok, are the ones that hold her attention the most.

The young woman notes difficulty sleeping, anxiety and also realizes that, because she spends a lot of time watching short videos, she cannot watch a movie without wanting to pick up her cell phone.

“I think I’m just going to watch a video, but when I see it I’ve already been on the phone for hours,” says the woman, who has been trying to control the compulsion by keeping the device away while doing her homework.

Daniela’s perception is similar to that of other young people. According to a survey published in March of this year, carried out by Common Sense Media with Brown University, almost half of teenagers who use TikTok feel addicted to the platform or access it for longer than they intended.

TikTok leads in total time spent on its platform, with young people spending more than two hours and 30 minutes on it a day. YouTube comes in second with nearly that time, followed by Snapchat and messaging apps at around two hours and Instagram at 92 minutes.

Many of the girls surveyed, aged between 11 and 15, use more than one platform on a daily basis.

Experts warn that social networks affect the developing brain. Among the consequences, young people like Daniela may have learning delays with a potential risk of becoming dependent on using the platforms.

Studies also point out that excessive use of screens in children and adolescents is capable of causing mental health damage, such as increased depression, loneliness, anxiety and lack of sleep.

Last week, Vivek Murthy, public health adviser to the US government, issued a warning about the risk of profound damage to the health of children and adolescents through the use of social networks. In the document, he suggests measures that families should adopt to avoid dependency among the youngest.

In addition to the alert, Murthy calls for greater clarity on the research fronts on which content causes damage, which neurological pathways are most affected and which strategies could be used to protect young people.

More recent scientific evidence already indicates that networks can provoke addictive behavior, in the same way as addiction to cigarettes and other substances.

The feeling of euphoria associated with that “like” on social networks makes young people seek the stimulus again, and the brain will understand that accessing the network generates a reward, which is the release of dopamine. This creates the dependency mechanism.

In Brazil, support groups welcome patients who abuse these tools and develop dependence. According to experts consulted by the Sheetit is common for boys to be addicted to online games and, for girls, to social networks.

Psychiatrist Rodrigo Bressan, professor at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) and president of the Instituto Ame a Sua Mente, explains that in younger people the limbic system, responsible for the pleasure area of ​​our brain, is more strengthened, while the pre- -frontal, associated with decision-making and impulse control, less so.

Therefore, among those under 18 years of age, there is a greater inconsequence of these excesses.

In the same way that it is not recommended that a child or adolescent consume alcohol or cigarettes, due to the risk involved, access to social media and screens in this age group is also contraindicated. In the case of networks, young people aged 10 to 12 are the most vulnerable.

Katia Ethiénne dos Santos, owner of KMK Consultoria e Training and consultant at Brain Academy, which conducts research on technologies in education, suggests that children up to 7 years old should not have access to screens and that social networks should be avoided until they are 13 or 14 years, at least. At that age, she explains, it’s possible that the young person has developed a greater awareness of consequences and responsibility.

She recalls the mechanism called neural pruning, which eliminates neurons when they do not synapse with the expected frequency or intensity —this modulation occurs in childhood and pre-adolescence. “If a child only receives stimuli from screens in early childhood, and no stimulation to play or ride a bike, these learnings can be affected”, she explains. “What we should look for is stimulation with effort, such as playing, playing games, doing other activities that are stimulating both from a physical and neurological point of view.”

It is the same view of Telma Pantano, speech therapist and psychopedagogue at the Institute of Psychiatry at USP and coordinator of the multidisciplinary team at Hospital Dia Infantil, at the Institute of Psychiatry at Hospital das Clínicas. “The problem isn’t the screens, it’s the use of them,” she says.

Researchers seek to understand addictive behavior linked to technologies. Bressan, who is one of the authors of a study that analyzed signs of “gaming disorder” (associated with online games and video games), explains that there are risk factors associated with the development of addictive behavior, such as a previous diagnosis of mental disorders (such as depression or anxiety) and play for hours on end. He says that risk factors from gaming can be extrapolated to social media as well.

Eduardo Guedes, coordinator of Instituto Delete, a research group linked to UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) that offers treatment for excessive technology consumption, says that digital education should not be restricted to families, but should also be in schools, in the government and the companies behind the platforms.

For him, young people cannot be allowed to use social networks without control. “We see children with delayed speech development because they don’t interact with the world or teenagers who can’t form a sentence because they’re on the screen writing with emoji, listening to WhatsApp in accelerated mode. It’s not a toy”, he says.

Pantano, from HC, agrees. “Using the screens or computers isn’t the issue, it’s how we make use of those tools,” he says. According to her, practices such as sending short messages with one or two words and a question mark already lead to an automation of use. “It’s not what we should be doing or teaching our children.”