What we know about social media’s effects on kids

Marketplace Tech

American Public Media

Technology, News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned about the risks social media could pose to the well-being of children and adolescents. It’s a topic the American Psychological Association has also been researching. The organization recently released recommendations based on the growing body of research into how social media is affecting young people. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Mitch Prinstein, the APA’s chief science officer, about social media’s effects on identity, relationships, sleep and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marketplace Morning Reports new Skin in the Game series explores what we can learn about
0:04.6	money and careers from the $300 billion video game industry. Plus, here how an Oakland-based
0:11.0	program helps young people get the skills they need to break into this booming industry.
0:15.9	Listen to Skin in the Game and more from the Marketplace Morning Report wherever you get your
0:20.7	podcasts. Smashing that like button just hits different when your prefrontal cortex is still
0:28.8	developing. From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty-Karino.
0:43.5	The US Surgeon General issued a warning last week about the potential harms of social media
0:50.2	for kids and adolescents. It's a topic the American Psychological Association has also been
0:56.6	taking a closer look at. The organization recently released a set of recommendations based on the
1:02.8	growing body of research into how social media is affecting young people. Dr. Mitch Princeton
1:10.0	is Chief Science Officer at the American Psychological Association. At some point we realized
1:15.8	if you're not asking about their online experiences, you're not really capturing their peer
1:21.0	experiences anymore. I mean, the vast majority of kids are spending the vast majority of their time
1:26.2	interacting with peers mediated by technology now. How does development affect social media use?
1:32.8	And how does social media use effect development? You know, young kids 10, 11, 12, I mean, they are
1:39.1	especially susceptible to not knowing what's real, what's not, making those over-generalization
1:46.2	errors, really striving to find an identity, but also their brains in particular are not fully
1:54.2	matured. And the brain doesn't develop all at once. It's actually region by region. So one of
2:01.0	the first regions that develops the puberty is the part that makes us really crave social feedback,
2:07.5	but the last area to develop is where we have our self-control or ability to stop our impulses.
2:14.2	So you've got this interesting period from about 10 to 25. When kids are so striving and
2:22.1	yearning for likes and feedback and the artificial intelligence, it's kind of unfair. It really
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