{"id":3787,"date":"2025-12-10T15:26:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/social-media-is-ruining-childrens-attention-spans\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T15:26:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:26:46","slug":"social-media-is-ruining-childrens-attention-spans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/social-media-is-ruining-childrens-attention-spans\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media is ruining children&#039;s attention spans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-12-10 15:26:44<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Social media isn\u2019t just stealing kids\u2019 time \u2014 it\u2019s chipping away at their ability to focus.<BR><br \/>\nResearchers from Sweden\u2019s Karolinska Institutet and Oregon Health and Science University followed 8,324 children from age nine or ten through early adolescence, charting their daily digital habits while parents reported on attention and impulsivity. <BR><br \/>\nWhat they found was stark: heavy social media use \u2014 not TV, not gaming \u2014 led to a steady erosion of attention.<BR><br \/>\nChildren who spent a &#8220;significant&#8221; amount of time on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, X or Messenger showed a gradual decline in concentration and a rise in &#8220;inattention symptoms&#8221;. <BR><br \/>\nBut those who mainly watched TV or played video games showed no such pattern.<BR><br \/>\nProfessor Torkel Klingberg, the senior author of the study, said: &#8220;Our study suggests that it is specifically social media that affects children\u2019s ability to concentrate.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;Social media entails constant distractions in the form of messages and notifications, and the mere thought of whether a message has arrived can act as a mental distraction. This affects the ability to stay focused and could explain the association.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nCrucially, children who already had attention problems were not more likely to start using social media &#8211; suggesting the relationship runs from screen to symptom, not the reverse.<BR><br \/>\nProfessor Klingberg said: &#8220;Greater consumption of social media might explain part of the increase we\u2019re seeing in ADHD diagnoses, even if ADHD is also associated with hyperactivity, which didn\u2019t increase in our study.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nLead author Samson Nivins thinks the study&#8217;s findings should guide both parents and policymakers<BR><br \/>\nThe Karolinska Institutet expert said: &#8220;We hope that our findings will help parents and policymakers make well-informed decisions on healthy digital consumption that support children\u2019s cognitive development.&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-12-10 15:26:44 Social media isn\u2019t just stealing kids\u2019 time \u2014 it\u2019s chipping away at their ability to focus. Researchers from Sweden\u2019s Karolinska Institutet and Oregon Health and Science University followed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3789,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions\/3789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}