Social networks are a widespread phenomenon and have become a platform that can be very useful in promoting a healthy lifestyle, however, they can also have a negative impact, especially among children and young people. Now, a study has found that the use of social networks is associated with behaviors that endanger the health of adolescents such as the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, participation in gambling, an antisocial attitude or sexual behaviors of risk.
The research is based on a review of the latest evidence on the subject and its results have been published in The BMJ. According to their results, exposure to risky health behavior content on social media, such as alcohol advertising, was the most harmful, especially in relation to alcohol consumption and unhealthy eating.
Previous reviews have identified harmful links between social media and some risk behaviors, but they focused only on college students, did not look specifically at social media, and did not evaluate the quality of the studies. The authors of the work highlight that more research is needed to establish causality, understand the effects on health inequalities and identify those aspects of social networks that are most harmful.
Daily use of social networks increased the risk of drinking alcohol by 48%
The researchers decided to examine the association between social media use and health risk behaviors in preteens and adolescents ages 10 to 19. To do this, they analyzed more than 250 measures on social networks reported in 73 studies carried out between 1997 and 2022 in which 1.4 million adolescents participated (with an average age of 15 years). Most studies were carried out in high-income countries and varied in quality, but researchers were able to assess the certainty of the evidence using the well-known GRADE system.
Results showed that frequent or daily social media use was associated with higher odds of alcohol use (48%), drug use (28%), and tobacco use (85%) compared to infrequent use, or not daily. Frequent or daily use of social media was also associated with risky sexual behaviors such as sexting, transactional sex, and less condom use (77%), antisocial behavior such as harassment, physical assault, and aggressive/delinquent behavior (73%), and almost three times more likely to gamble, compared to infrequent or non-daily use.
Adolescents’ exposure to social media content that displayed unhealthy behaviors appeared to cause the most harm to them, especially following an unhealthy diet and alcohol consumption, compared to not being exposed. to these contents.
Spending at least two hours a day on social media doubled the odds of consuming alcohol, compared to less than two hours a day of use.
In the case of alcohol consumption, stronger associations were found for adolescents aged 16 years and older and for exposure to consumer-generated content compared to seller-generated content. Additionally, spending at least two hours a day on social media doubled the odds of consuming alcohol, compared to less than two hours a day of use.
Researchers have indicated that most of the social network measures were based on young people’s personal memories and that they cannot rule out the possibility that other factors that have not been taken into account, such as the health risk behaviors of parents, may have influenced their results.
However, this was a comprehensive review and the researchers took steps to minimize the impact of factors such as variation in study designs and publication bias. “Experimental and risky behaviors are an inherent part of adolescence,” they write. “However, as safeguards for a digital world are still evolving, caution may be warranted in academic, government, healthcare and education sectors before the risks of adolescent use of social media are fully understood,” they conclude.
