Study: Using Social Media Before Age 11 Leads to ‘Problematic Digital Behaviour’

A new study published in Computers in Human Behavior, a scholarly journal dedicated to examining the use of computers from a psychological perspective, has established that people who start using social media before the age of 11 are substantially more likely to engage in problematic digital behaviors than those who start later.

The study also found that parental restrictions on phone use and checking social media ameliorated some of the negative effects associated with internet exposure.

“Social media sites all require a minimum age of 13 to register, but the reality is that many users are younger than that: one-third of our sample had already started using social media at age 11 or 12 and another one-third had begun at age 10 or younger,” said the study’s lead author Linda Charmaraman, PhD, Director of the Youth, Media and Wellbeing Research Lab at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW).

The research also showed more “unsympathetic online behaviors” and children were more likely to become victims of online bullying or harassment. 

Additionally, the study revealed that those who joined social media before age 11 also showed greater civic engagement within the online community—such as posting supportive content or fostering events and activism for social issues.

The suggestion is that, on the bright side of a generally worrisome reality for parents, digital socialization at a younger age can help the concerned people grasp both the positive and negative potentials of online platforms. 

Charmaraman and her co-authors conducted a survey of 773 middle school students in the Northeast United States to learn about their social media use, digital behaviors, and parental restrictions on digital use.

The new research confirms the findings of similar studies.Half of the children aged 11 and 12 have a social media profile, despite most platforms' minimum age being 13, a study from Ofcom, UK's communications regulator, previously suggested.

Parental awareness of the age limit is low, the study further showed, with about eight in 10 of parents whose children use Instagram or Snapchat reported to be unaware of the platforms’ age restrictions.

Source: moroccoworldnews by Amal El Attaq.