Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.
Do you have an academic degree? We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. Click here to apply.
Social media is overstimulating. Back when I was a kid, my knowledge cravings were just met by books and available media. I would watch the same movies every day but its only when there is a TV set up. There is a natural downtime just to play, talk to friends, and occupy myself with other things.
With phones, it's easy to scroll for hours taking in so much information for a quick dopamine spike. When you are bored, you don't find something exciting to do, you just go online again and do the same scrolling.
As an adult, I could somehow develop self awareness and comparison to the time I didn't have social media. A lot of children never knew anything else but alleviate their boredom with screens.
I screw around on my phone a fair amount like practically everyone else. But I still have that "this is not an appropriate time to look at my phone" control. They are glued to their phones. If it so much as chimes, no matter how dumb the notification, they will check it and spend time investigating it with a gravity that no phone notification deserves.
its absolutely wild how much our parent/grandparent generation sucks. "Dont believe everything on the internet" and "Stop staring at the screen you'll rot your brain/eyes/whatever"
Yea, it's pretty dark that we got to the point that TV and video games are relatively much better options. Bring back books, board games, outdoor play and just using your imagination as much as possible!
There are usually boardgame trading/selling groups on Facebook in your city if you want to save some money while switching things up. Can easily get some fancy games half off in near mint condition. Board game people buy way too many boardgames and eventually need to make physical space so they offload games they're not playing anymore.
If you like Scrabble, you do you! But note that nowadays there are pretty good modern games that can be played with spare parts, or a regular deck of playing cards. Or print and play! And tend to rival the best selling games pretty decently.
I taught my daughter to play Regicide the other day, and she had a blast, and begged me to play more. And we have plenty of more expensive games around. You can check many other games with a regular deck in BoardGameGeek.
And if you want something with more "board" than "card" feeling, search for free print and play games. You may be a bit overwhelmed if you are only used to the classics, but modern board games are an absolute delight. Game design has improved amazingly well over the years.
As someone that had done both it's not the same thing.
There's a massive social difference with a physical board. When everything is projected on a screen all that focus goes on the screen. All logic is handled by a computer.
When something's laid out on a table and everyone has to interact with the same pieces, rules have to be discussed and enforced by the whole group. this changes the dynamic completely
There’s still a slight difference. Being around people, at least for me, makes the whole social thing feel more rewarding to a certain degree. Also, when you sit down to play a game there’s usually more movement going on than if you’re glued to a screen.
Not coming for video games here. I hate board games. Just saying.
Board games are typically played around a central table, and things only happen when people move the pieces amongst each other.
Local multiplayer in games is typically played with everyone side-by-side looking at the same screen, and the game itself handles its own components.
Both are social activities, but there's a fundamental difference in how the social side of each works. It's like how reading printed books in paper is very similar to, but still has differences from, listening to an audiobook.
Like LAN parties or playing Wii? Or like people playing cards?
My point was that in a board game setting there’s usually a lot more adjustment of position, conversation breaks, preparing food, etc. Gaming with friends can result in hours of being almost motionless, which is great fun, but horrible for your body.
Hes making a point to make one. Sure thats a thing but theres barely any co op games made today anyway for a splitscreen. I game a LOT and I enjoy it, sometimes with friends but mostly solo. No need to pretend the people I have good interactions with online are real friends
This is also a thread on a study pointing to a problem that has given a pass to TV and video games. The comments are instead full of whether video games are actually bad or not, in ways well beyond the scope of the study.
I miss when all these comments would have been removed so we could discuss whatever is relevant to the findings of the paper. I used to learn so much from the people here.
Because "video games bad" is a tired old trope that should go away already.
Lots of us experienced some pretty significant bullying for our interests, so of course we get defensive.
Its exhausting to be told all my problems in life come from an engaging art form that gives my life extra structure and purpose. Like that doesn't even make sense.
Are we supposed to pretend that we'd spend whatever time not playing games suddenly being the most productive person in the world? This is a common fallacy, but its simply not true, people don't suddenly change their lives with that extra time.
Maybe you don't realize that some of us moved after school and most of our friends live in other states or countries? If I turn off the games I play with my friends I'm not suddenly able to teleport them to my city.
And the idea that driving to a strip mall to play board games with strangers is so so much better than enjoying games, and preserving/building already existing relationships, seems to be grounded in nothing but some kind of "internet bad, screens bad, video games bad" mentality.
While they aren't superior as a general category, board games don't usually include such predatory models as are overwhelmingly prevalent in the Free To Play game ecosystem, or live-service games.
Plus sitting at a table playing Wingspan and talking is more social forward than playing another round of Counter-Strike or even a couch co-op game with a friend next to you.
I have a board game night, I play video games almost every other night and it’s demonstrably different.
Since board game rules are adjudicated by the players, not a machine, it develops social skills more directly. Your opponent can't table flip a video game if you're being a sore winner.
The modern board game market with its limited time kickstarter complete sets and constant expansions isn't that different of a model anymore, unfortunately. Obviously not as predatory but the board game market is not immune to people trying to wring every last buck out of our pockets.
Right, you have to go to a store to get those signals. When you open up a brand new game box, there might be a sheet of paper or two suggesting you get expansions or companions but it’s never going to interrupt play to ask you to buy something.
Yeah. You don’t get a warning from Catan that you won’t be able to play with your friends because they have the Knights and Cities Expansion and you don’t.
It isn't entirely black and white, but in context of a discussion about increased ADHD symptoms, the clearly superior option to combat that is board games.
Video games have benefits, but for patience, concentration, and deep strategy, studies show board games are much better.
I like them, so many ebooks available and many are free from libraries. I do occasionally get distracted, so I'll sometimes put my phone in Airplane mode when reading.
The content being consumed is good since it requires lengthy engagement and juggling of characters and their stories, themes, morals etc just like real books.
Although your poor eyes with all that direct blue light, turn the screen to a warm light if you can.
Or consider a Kobo or Kindle if you like screens and hate holding heavy books, bonus it removes temptations from notifications. Because on a phone the light being a backlight is behind the screen and shone right into your face while on an ereader the light is a frontlight at the sides of the screen but in front of it, lighting it, then it is reflected to you just like a real book under a lamp would be.
It's my favourite purchase, be wary of store limitations though, Kobo misses some popular titles while Amazon Kindle has all the books but none of the friendly consumer practices of letting you actually own your ebooks. That said, there are ways to back up your data. coughCalibrecough
I think the type of video game can really play a factor. My son plays Fortnite and Roblox. I dismissed them initially as mind numbing and depthless. But he’s had me play them with him and my mind has changed. There’s surprisingly a lot to teach.
For Fortnite, he has to make quick change decisions on loadout and keep track of an ever changing inventory and figure out how to win with options that aren’t his preferred. He has to remember maps, recognize landmarks, strategize locations based on supplies vs combatant density. Those are the only way to win since you start every round at the same level as everyone else with the same loadout. I’m flabbergasted by how quick he adapts to situations.
For Roblox, he started with the brainrot games, which are admittedly low effort collection slogs. But they require patience. Then he moved to Fisch and that’s full of puzzles, and budgeting and opportunities for thoughtful comparisons in equipment strategy, along with more patience while trying to catch what you need or want. Then there’s trading with random people where he deals with trust, negotiation, and skepticism. And he’s had to deal with the disappointment of receiving something inferior when trading or buying.
I’m probably reading way too much into these simple games, but as a parent, I try to take a deeper look at everything he does.
When you are bored, you don’t find something exciting to do, you just go online again and do the same scrolling.
I am 100% guilty of this. I will also say people used to just…be bored. Sometimes there wasn’t anything exciting to do.
I think that’s really REALLY important.
I did a month long hike across few years ago. No cell service. I just walked and sometimes chat with the other person, sometimes just be silent. It took two weeks, but on day 15 or so…
I started day dreaming VIVIDLY. Like I used to in grade school. Just full detailed hilarious/interesting/dramatic scenarios playing out in my head.
It stopped when I got back and I had the ability to just look at my phone again.
It’s not just the availability of content now. The issue is we’re never truly bored. Our brains need to be bored every once in a while.
I’ve noticed that when I’m reading longform content like novels regularly, the daydreaming/staring off into space becomes much more vivid and happens more often.
I agree about boredom, but I think it's something even bigger than that.
It's not just boredom, it's having mental down time to process your thought.
I've noticed with the young people in my life (and "young" here encompasses everything from small children to my 20-something nieces and nephews), there is almost zero "I am alone with my thoughts and can process them in a quiet environment" time in their lives at all. They are always stimulated by something.
I find it entirely uncoincidental that they are also all universally very very anxious.
I notice with my children that starting from the age of three or four, they start to develop the capacity to be bored. My four-year-old sometimes just lies on the floor for half an hour. It starts out with him whining that he's bored and then transitions into him telling me he's reading a book or watching a video in his head. He'll whisper his stories to himself.
My children have a much larger capacity for waiting than their peers. Sitting at the bus stop or waiting at the doctors, they just kind of daydream. Might be nurture or nature, who knows.
Note that my kids are allowed a twenty minute video maybe two times a week. They do not watch TV or have a tablet or access to our phones.
"Stopping cues" have been designed out of society. Literal points that you would reach that tell you "this thing ends here".
Back in the day, TV used to end for the night at like 11pm (at least here in the UK anyway, same in the US?). The news was something you got in a 30 minute chunk by watching TV at 6pm, or from reading a 50 page newspaper once a day. You got to the last page, closed the newspaper and that was it; the news was done.
Now the news is right there in front of you 24/7. There is no end to social media; it's just an endless feed that you literally cannot reach the end of. It's designed to entice you to keep scrolling, watch more, engage more, rot your brain more. Watched some 15 second brainrot reel? The next one bounces up from the bottom of the screen, enticing you to scroll some more.
The issue is that this data does not imply that ADHD develops after birth. That is a far too common misunderstanding that many people carry.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition tied to genetics and brain structure / brain function differences that begin prenatally, including differences in: Dopamine regulation patterns, differences in prefrontal cortex maturation, connectivity between attention systems
These traits exist in ADHD brains before screens, before childhood expectations, and even before birth.
To “cause ADHD,” screens would need to change those traits — and research shows they cannot.
Screens can:
Make kids more distractible in the moment.
Reduce patience for slow tasks
Interfere with sleep (which impacts focus).
Lead to “attention scatter” after overstimulation
These effects happen in all children, not just neurodivergent ones.
But they represent temporary performance changes, not permanent brain wiring changes.
Eg. If you’re tired, hungry, or stressed, your attention gets worse — but that doesn’t mean you “developed ADHD.”
Overuse of screens can cause functional attention problems, not ADHD.
Influence on skill development ≠ causing a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Among those that are diagnosed ADHD, increases can be due to
1. ADHD awareness has increased dramatically
2. ADHD stigma has decreased dramatically
3. We have much better, and much more accessible diagnostic tools
4. As discussed above, screens can often increase ADHD symptoms in kids with ADHD, making it more noticeable (where-as the symptoms would have been much less noticeable before screens were commonly used)
5. Most significant to this conversation - we know for a fact that ADHD brains (which are often dopamine starved) are more likely to be drawn to things like screens which can offer dopamine.
*This means that an increase in people born with ADHD for ANY reason would naturally still correlate with an increase in screen usage among children who end up being diagnosed ADHD.
8. Just like with Autism- older generations are increasingly being diagnosed with ADHD in their 30's/40's/50's and older. Because when we were young there was much less knowledge, much less accessibility, and much more stigma.
Screens create fast-paced stimulation, constant novelty, and very fast reward loops.
This can make a kid WITHOUT ADHD to be impatient, restless, easily bored, more distractible
Those behaviours look like ADHD, so people assume screens caused ADHD. But they don’t — they just temporarily affect attention in everyone, not just neurodivergent kids.
This is not to say that these kids are diagnosed with ADHD, but rather that lay-people, like parents or a teacher, might assume they do.
Further to that, ADHD medication effects non-ADHD brains extremely differently than it does in ADHD brains. What might make a non-ADHD brain function worse, will often make an ADHD brain able to function better. Again, these are mechanical differences in how the brain functions.
Screens may worsen existing symptoms, but you can't just re-write how the brain is wired during development in the womb.
Regarding the anecdotes - I don't think it's wise to use your childhood as a reference when plenty of ADHD people had childhoods just like yours.
While there is an obvious correlation to the increase in screens, and the increase in ADHD being diagnosed, they simply don't change how your child's brain is wired. They are either born with an ADHD brain, or they are not. Just like with autism.
While we're sharing anecdotes,
I have ADHD, as does my wife who was literally born and raised across the world from me. This isn't just a North America thing. She likely wouldn't be diagnosed if she never moved here. Accessibility and awareness cannot be understated as important to this discussion.
I literally grew up with barely any TV at all, with no video games, and I would go through hundreds of books a year. My wife's childhood was similar.
I was always one of the most well-read in my classes. From the moment I could read, I had a higher reading level than expected for my age. This, despite learning disabilities (autism/adhd).
I played outside a lot too. I played alone when I was younger, and later with the neighborhood kids almost every day.
I was incredibly creative. I made my own games and would play them with my friends. Later on that became D&D and board games. I would write enormous worlds and stories. I would draw and craft.
Yes I played on the computer as I got into teen years and it became my escape from abuse, disability, marginalization, and things that caused diagnosed PTSD and CPTSD... but I had clear ADHD (and autism) symptoms long before that.
My mind was always turning, always absorbing everything around me, like ADHD brains are programmed to do. And it still does that.
It cannot be understated how common it is to find undiagnosed but OBVIOUSLY neurodivergent people among Gen X and older. Many of whom have long since learned to live with their issues and won't get diagnosed for many reasons, even if they are struggling.
As an adult, I could somehow develop self awareness and comparison to the time I didn't have social media. A lot of children never knew anything else but alleviate their boredom with screens.
The way ADHD brains work, being unregulated without screens isn't any better than being unregulated with screens.
What you said is very true, but I think it would be more accurate to phrase it this way:
A child now-a-days will have a lot of data on how their mind is with screens, but no data on their mind without screens.
So without that perspective, it may be a bit more difficult (bit not impossible) to identify what is the best middle-ground of screen usage for their specific flavour of ADHD
My favourite is when you see the Question "what did you do when you were bored and had no phone?" And all the answers are "went out and played, games console, rode our bike etc" missing the times you are sat at a bus stop and the next one isn't for an hour. I used to design stuff better but i would be in agony if i didn't have my phone for an hour waiting for the train.
The title needs clarification: it’s the “use” of screens, not screens themselves rising (hello r/TVtoohigh), and that’s a mediaspeak metonym for the use of portable networked electronics, which quickly gets boiled down to social media use, which has its own issues independent of the screen or other technology involved.
Also, as someone with adhd diagnosed in my mid 30s because I have inattentive I hate this claim that technology is "causing" adhd.
Sure, I can see general attention spans being effected, but adhd is more than that. I see it as more as we now know more about adhd and can spot or easier as well as having distractions everywhere might make certain forms of it easier to spot.
Looking back I had so many obvious symptoms as a kid, but I wasnt a hyperactive boy who disrupted class so I was ignored.
I was just lost in my own head that was filled with noise and random thoughts. I had issues with motivation and memory. I did well on tests, but homework was torture and I'd forget to do it most of the time.
Adhd has historically been diagnosed by how "annoying" you are to other people. In same cases it still is as there are providers who still think we "grow out of it" or that you can't have adhd and autism at the same time.
We don't grow out of it, we develop coping mechanisms that are usually unhealthy and unsustainable. I basically did everything last minute because the anxiety and panic was the only thing that could overpower my executive dysfunction. I was probably close to if not in the early stages of burnout when I finally got diagnosed.
i didn't get diagnosed until I failed out of university and became nearly suicidally depressive.
Couldn't have been adhd though because i wasn't annoying though, right? just a procrastinator who didn't apply himself and was always disorganized and forgetful and daydreamed a lot and never did his homework, but did well on tests so it had to have been something else of course
I didn't have it quite as bad as others I've seen. I managed to graduate college with a lot of effort and my industry seems to require a certain number of neurodivergent people to work, so I got lucky there.
But I would always get to a point where I would just rot on the couch when I wasn't working on something with external pressure. I couldn't even get myself to work on things I wanted to do, much less things I needed to do around the house. I never felt accomplished when something was done, just relief that it was over.
But between wondering how much better things would have been for me if I had been diagnosed when I was a kid and seeing how much worse other people have had it I cannot accept how society has failed us. It's why I comment on these topics because we need our voices heard to even start countering the stigma.
I tried nearly every class of meds for 'depression' since my adolescence, it was only in my mid twenties I found a psych who recognized the symptoms and ADHD meds were the wonder drug I needed. Living with untreated ADHD can cause depression and anxiety, and antidepressants are generally not effective against this as the underlying cause is still there.
That tracks, I was actually diagnosed with anxiety and depression first, tried treating that - first with SSRIs for a few months which I absolutely loathed the side effects of, changed to wellbutrin which was better but still not as helpful as id hoped, then about a year after that first anxiety/depression diagnoses is when I started getting tested and diagnosed for adhd. Was like a two month process for me, so many tests and stuff was kind of fun in hindsight but a lot of appointments which was a hassle
That sounds exactly like me as a kid with ADHD. Even down to being good at tests but terrible at everything else school related. I don't think anyone thought I didn't have it because of being good at tests though. But because nobody actually explained to me what ADHD is besides not being able to pay attention, I was always confused why I was going to test but bad at everything else
Historically girls were not diagnosed with adhd. The increases in people diagnosed with it, besides being from better screening may come from the increases associated with more diagnosis of girls and women.
Girls are more likely to be inattentive, or at least seem inattentive. I suspect a lot of how ADHD is expressed or perceived in childhood has to be down to social expectation and pressure.
"Boys will be boys" is the mentality of people who don't actually parent boys, but it is so ingrained in society that even people who do try might not try hard enough. So you get boys who have hyperactive ADHD more likely to act out and be physical since they are "allowed" to do that more often.
Girls get the social pressure of needing to "behave" way more. So there tends to be more masking behaviors much earlier in life. Any movement like stemming will also get reprimanded more often.
I know when I was in middle school I has this thing I did that the adults called a "nervous tick" and would tell me to stop even though I wasn't disrupting anyone. I would move my hand as if drumming on stuff, but when I was in class I would do it lightly on my arm or leg so I didn't make noise. Didn't matter.
I don't think the expectations to "behave" are a good thing at all. I'm tired of seeing female socialization reframed as a good thing. This is the mentality that discourages girls from working on arcane projects.
Yes. Started with Adderall and been taking it since. It doesn't get rid of the ADHD but it helps with motivation and focus as well as general mood regulation. Before medication I would be much more irritable and had constant background anxiety I didn't know was there until it went away.
It won't work as well if I forget to stay hydrated, have poor sleep, or am depressed because of everything going on in the world, but it still keeps me at a higher functional state than I would be without it.
But I still have ADHD and still have to manage it, but medication makes managing it easier. I also still have autism, but that doesn't hinder me like ADHD does.
Not OP, but he described what I went through almost word for word, taking meds have helped me focus on menial tasks that I previously would require an immense amount of effort just to start.
I also had other issues that exarcerbated my inability to focus, which were also kinda resolved with medication.
Just got back into college at 32 for a masters after 10 years away. I was diagnosed back in September (although I believe I was diagnosed in elementary school at some point but never really got the help I needed to be successful in school).
I’m honestly gobsmacked by how well this described my experience, especially with being in your own head so much. I’d add that now that I’m back, I’m noticing my problems much more than in my undergrad, which I thought was just burnout. The worst part is feeling like you took decent notes and gathered all the information from a lecture just to feel like you go neuralized by MIB between the lecture and the assignments or tests (especially if they’re written SAT style).
I’ll say that the notion that video games don’t see that same issue, I’m not so sure. Then again, maybe games were just my coping mechanism but I feel they certainly played a role in my inability to pay attention.
I’ve deleted most social media (aside from this and Bluesky) and it’s helpful yes, but I think there’s more at play here than social media alone.
Except TikTok, that’s the social media equivalent to nicotine.
The worst part is feeling like you took decent notes and gathered all the information from a lecture just to feel like you go neuralized by MIB
Something I learned at some point in grade school is that I had two options: Pay attention or take notes I wouldn't be able to read later anyway.
I had so many teachers give me crap for not taking notes despite me getting As on most of their tests.
For video games, I still enjoy them, but up until about 4 years ago I didn't realize much of my drive to play was escapism for other things I have going on. working through all of that made me happier, but then I realized I couldn't get myself to play anything unless I could hyper focus on it.
That was when I started thinking I should seek a diagnosis, especially after reconnecting with friends after I hadn't seen since the start of the pandemic that had gotten diagnosed and how much more focused they were.
I was almost 40 when I was finally diagnosed. My mom spoke to my pediatrician about the possibility when I was in elementary school but he refused to look into it. He said I can finish a 600 page book in a night and am not disruptive in class so obviously its not ADD.
Exactly what I think about it. ADHD is not something you develop because of things you choose to do. Like what the hell is that. And it's a hell of a lot more than just being inattentive when people want you to be attentive.
I don't think it caused ADHD but screens and social media can be very harmful to attention span and dopamine. I want to state that ADHD is very real but the amount of teens and young adults I know who can't do anything without having constant dopamine and attention hits is staggering
And I agree that it certainly can be, but every time I see these articles it almost always calls it a "rise in ADHD" when that isn't what it is.
It comes off as sounding like the writer sees ADHD as a personal failing, not the developmental disability it is. As someone who was gaslit that I didn't have it as a kid because I was told I was "so smart" and "just needed to apply yourself" and "stop being so lazy", I am wary of how people word things when they talk about ADHD.
There are doctors who don't think ADHD is a thing and the average person still has a massive stigma about ADHD, as well as autism, when they know nothing about it. This is part of the reason I don't tell my coworkers I'm taking Adderall unless I have to because I have heard horror stories of people telling their jobs about their ADHD and then suddenly they go from good reviews to negative ones. Sure, some might be embellished, but there's enough there to make it a concern.
And when it comes to stimulants they talk about us all being "high" or "taking speed" because they don't understand how stimulants effect ADHD brains differently. I can drink caffeine an hour before bed and have a great night sleep. I didn't understand the concept of a power nap before taking Adderall.
My medication calms me down and focuses me, yet there are a lot of people who would start seeing my every action as manic if they knew I was taking Adderall. It just helps me get laundry done and actually clean more often than once every couple of months and do any other task without dragging my feet every time.
Exactly. Being hooked on screens and social media is a behavior problem driven by dopamine loops you trained yourself into. It creates restlessness, distractibility, and a craving for quick hits of stimulation. But that is not ADHD. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition rooted in how the brain regulates attention, executive function, and impulse control. You can put the phone down and improve screen-induced attention issues with habits and discipline. ADHD does not turn off when you delete apps or take a weekend away from your phone. One is conditioning. The other is wiring.
There's also the aspect of it being a "trend" to get diagnosed. There's a private clinic charging $3k to diagnose you and if you don't have ADHD, you'll get your money back. Apparently 1 in 500 doesn't have ADHD:
I'm not implying that it's made up or that screens don't have a negative effect but we have a very different view on ADHD than we did just a couple of decades ago.
The title is just way too long, it already makes the distinction you're asking for in the second half.
Children who spent significant time on social media (Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter) gradually developed inattention symptoms; there was no such association with TV or video games.
It’s time to treat social media platforms as we’ve come to treat cigarettes and alcohol — it should be illegal for children, at least in its current designed-to-be-addictive (profitable) format.
There is a fun government ad that will explain why that is a bad idea and what to do instead:
"Honest government ad. Social media ban"
(Can't link to you tu be)
Banning children from social media and only "teaching children" won't work, you need to regulate social media companies (the addictiveness of algorthms and so forth).
But they wont do that. These tech companies have far too much money and lobbying power; so no meaningful change will happen. Even when confronted with evidence of how they are poisoning the mind of the youth.
Well id like to think that we are trying. But voting a party who will do the right thing is met with such extreme propaganda that it doesnt happen. At least in the US where these tech come from.
So it falls back on the user to have agency, in this case the parents have to set up boundries.
How is it a fake solution to remove people from social media? It might not be your favorite solution, but there's nothing fake about it. When it comes to government policy, there's rarely a perfect solution.
I really don't care how they kill social media if it actually happens, because butchering the Internet will be good for the vast majority of people.
It's a fake solution just as the traditional American mindset of puritanism toward sexuality is one and actually creates more teen pregnancies, etc. You will create young adults (and teens that manage to get around it, which they tend to find ways to) who are utterly illequipped to actually use it in a healthy way instead.
banning children from social media is a fake solution because with the excuse of "protecting the children" you get more surveillance (ID verification).
It’s an overly simplistic, rushed, and ineffective solution.
It ignores expert advice, digital rights groups, and human rights concerns.
It creates privacy and identity theft risks while restricting freedom of speech.
It shifts responsibility onto kids and parents instead of regulating tech companies.
It harms vulnerable youth (e.g., LGBTQ+ teens, those seeking mental health support or escaping abuse) who rely on online communities.
Kids can easily bypass it.
It doesn’t address root causes: toxic algorithms, addictive features, lack of platform accountability.
It benefits billionaires by avoiding meaningful regulation.
Real solutions :
Regulate social media companies force them to moderate toxic algorithms and ban addictive features.
Impose a Duty of Care to protect all users (require social media platforms to take reasonable, proactive steps to prevent foreseeable harm to their users)
And you can still encourage parents to talk to their kids, parents can model better behaviour and so on...
Assuming you want to address children specifically and not simply make social media illegal worldwide, this is equivalent to banning kids from social media. 'Just regulate them' is not a magic wand, if you want them to avoid doing certain things with children, that implies banning children from certain functions, which implies the ability to detect children, which implies online identity etc etc...
It's not an easy problem, but I wish people were a little more willing to commit to the actual technical and jurisdictional mechanisms required to 'just regulate bro'. Right now it feels a little like wanting to make theft illegal, but without cops, detectives, or receipts.
I don't think making it illegal will work tbh. The Techbros will age gate it and then do as they've done with everything else harmful on their platforms, from hate speech to misinformation, and do the absolute minimum of moderation largely focused on automatic and easily bypass-able systems without human oversight.
The only realistic solution is to regulate the platforms aggressively, and in the same way schools, hospitals, and other services have a duty of care to those who use them Social Media should have a legal duty of care to their users. Because the only way they're going to act in the interests of society is if we make not doing so financially ruinous.
and its already caused a huge amount of issues, mostly people having their verification id's (licenses / passports) being compromised and sold as data online.
Just doesn't work. Even in places with digital ID its not very effective, or secure.
I regularly had to use Korean Social ID's to access korean online markets and gaming, and it was relatively easy to find someone's ID for free online. Likewise with accessing chinese social media platforms.
Lot of comments here really wanting to push the responsibility of keeping kids safe online entirely to the government with ID verification.
Parents really dont want to parent, it seems. Its the parents job to understand what their child is doing online and to TEACH them how to use the internet safely, what to look out for, basic knowledge of what CAN happen on the internet if they are not careful. Its the parents job to limit that time in the screen. Not the governments.
If your child trusts a stranger on the internet more than you, you have failed as a parent.
Yep we have to regulate big tech to hell and back. We forget that social media was mostly fine before the algorithms came in. We have to ban algorithms, regulate rules on hate speech and misinformation
The government should mandate that social media HAS to provide the option to turn off infinite scrolling. It’s bad for us, there’s no question about it and we should limit the ways it can harm us in the same way there are laws around advertising junk food to children, taxes on excessive sugar in drinks etc.
Absolutely not. The only way to achieve this is trough some form of digital ID, which would erode every notion of anonymity and privacy on the internet.
I don't mind showing ID when buying alcohol, I do however have a problem with showing ID to access websites where that ID can somehow be connected to what I do and say online.
Forget it, if children have to be mentally ill for me to keep my anonymity, so be it.
Exactly this. Imagine people getting arrested for what they say in social media (already happens a lot; especially in 3rd world countries) on a bigger scale. If anything ID verification will make the "algorithm" much stronger.
It's absolutely possible to develop technological solutions (like device-based authentication) that retain some or most privacy. And candidly the "privacy" thing is a red herring anyway - you don't have privacy online you have, at best, the illusion of privacy.
These companies have billions upon billions of dollars to spend on the best engineers in the world, the idea that the best we can do is scanning our drivers licenses for verification is total BS - the companies just need to be given the proper incentives to develop a verification system that works and retains whatever "privacy" you think you have.
It’s not about telling children they need more willpower in the face of algorythms meticulously designed to keep every single second of your free time. That never works. It’s about putting limits on the social media companies creating these algorythms
A child simply doesn't have the mental or physical ability to use will power to avoid harmful addictions like algorithms and junk food that why the government and parents need to play a role in protecting them
You can't teach people to use addictive things responsibly. This is why we have an obesity epidemic despite widespread knowledge that fatty and sugary foods are not healthy. You have to regulate to make things less addictive, teach people responsible use AND prevent them from becoming addicted in childhood when their brains are still developing.
I used to smoke, quitting was hard and it did a number on my health.
I know today that foods designed to sit in the Goldilocks zone of carbs:fat are a real challenge for me, as well as short form content and other "socially acceptable" forms of overindulgence.
We are quick to ban drugs such as heroin, MDMA, cocaine, THC because they're bad for you.
In the UK through 2024 there were 1,732 heroin deaths, 31,000 obesity deaths, 23,000 alcohol deaths and 80,000 deaths through smoking.
There are almost a quarter of a million people waiting for an ADHD assessment because they are struggling to cope in the modern world.
Human evolution was not prepared for the overabundance of addictive substances and activities. It's easy telling people to "just not do it" but the reality of the situation is that we cannot always fight our nature.
We are in a unique situation where we know this, and can take action but choose not to.
We're all just rats in a Skinner box, pressing the pedal to get immediate gratification and our lives are worse for it.
If adults can't get a grasp on social media, there's no chance that children will have any form of self control. At this point social media needs ID verification(not a fan, but no other way forward) because children AND bots are a massive issue.
Or we can keep pretending everything is fine. It is what it is I guess.
This is such a frustrating response. These technologies and applications are designed specifically to exploit our neurocircuity. For those prone to overuse, you may as well recommend an alcoholic to drink responsibly.
This ^
There's lots of positive and constructive ways to use social media. I'm an artist and I tried curbing my "social media use" at some point back in high-school. Definitely felt the immediate backsliding from losing a lot motivation to finish art projects and long term there's probably a lot of opportunities I missed out on from fumbling what was essentially a growing small business.
I'm also an artist and there's a difference between mindlessly scrolling social media because you're bored and using social media in your small business.
Replace social media in your comment with any other addiction, then re-read it. This is exactly what addicts do to justify their addictions.
Social media's negatives have far outweighed any of its positives at least a decade ago if not more when it began it's extreme retention optimizations. It doesn't need to go away, but we can't keep pretending we aren't all addicted.
Wait, that makes it sounds like I was dealing drugs AND getting high off my own supply. And guess in some way that's true, if you count enjoying the arts as a negative way to use social media?
I think it's really important to clarify what exactly we are referring to as negative kinds of social media use, because even on the same site within the same circles of people, how people "use social media" can vary wildly.
What an absolute fking mess of a title leading us to people having meltdowns in the comment section. The paper clearly states that the variables they use leads to the conclusion that SM-use in kids means higher occurence of ADHD-like symptoms. It has nothing to do with screen time. And don’t nobody care about a surface level analysis on ADHD and diagnosis. I can’t be asked why am I even writing this comment?
Additionally, children who already had symptoms of inattentiveness did not start to use social media more, which suggests that the association leads from use to symptoms and not vice versa.
We know that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder and not an acquired affliction, which means that it's literally impossible for "screen time" - a thing which occurs after birth and formative development - to "cause".
What they are almost certainly observing is the confluence of
1) Increased awareness and better diagnostic mechanisms permitting increased diagnosis of people who were already in the population, and
2) An increase in highly visible, highly accessible diversions which are uniquely suited to appeal to ADHD brains being available, and thus being used by those people as coping tools.
Yes definitely, I didn’t get diagnosed until recently because I thought adhd was constantly fidgeting, being super extroverted and hyperactive and yknow general super obvious stuff.
But when I was a kid I’d read books all the time and I’d get super obsessive when I got into books like I’d wake up and read then read on the school bus then on breaks and then on the way home.
I’d read books to help sleep but then read until
Like 3am because I wanted to know what happened next.
Like I’ve always obsessively done stuff, a smart phone just exacerbates it.
ADHD is a spectrum and a lot of kids and their parents don’t even notice because they don’t show up in the obvious ways, but yeah smart phones are like the worst for ADHD because you need constant stimulation and instead of searching for it you can just be on your phone, it makes it super obvious.
Precisely this. There’s some evidence that social media of certain kinds or tablet games of certain kinds can exacerbate symptoms and it’s not the dumbest hypothesis, but I was an untreated ADHD kid in the 90s/early 2000s and I was lucky I was bright and sharp, cos getting work out of me was a nightmare, I was kicked out of class lots over minor interruptions, I one got 5 lunch time detentions for not doing homework from the same teacher in the same week, the guys down the bus station in a major city new me by name cos of how often I left my kit bag on there. I’m now on meds and they’re great and I just wish I had them earlier in life so much.
Taking screen time back to pre-social media/tablets etc., doesn’t fix ADHD, at best it might reduce symptoms a little bit. The reason everyone came forward (same as with being trans) is that’s a treatment exists that’s really bloody effective and nothing motivates people to come forward quite like effective care.
Like the association between increased ice cream consumption and increased number of drowning victims. There may be issues with social media, but we literly didn't have an ADHD diagnosis in Sweden until the middle 1990s (there was a DAMP diagnosis before), and it was treated as a young hyper boy issue, making many type inattentive and type combined folk not diagnosed until many decades later. Even type hyperactive that just fell through the cracks earlier.
If I recall correctly, in USA you weren't allowed to diagnose someone with both autism and adhd until like 2013 or somewhere there in that ballpark.
The estimated prevalence of genuine adhd is 5%, but in the uk for example only 0.6% of the population has been diagnosed. Ie to get everyone who has it diagnosed, almost 10x more diagnoses need to happen. The “sharp rise” in diagnosis is still much less than 10x, so very easily can be caused by better diagnosis
Shhhh, you can't point out those kinds of things. Better diagnostics and understandings revealing MORE diagnoses? And that also occurs alongside a period of time where X also is?? The correlation must be X and diagnosis, not the advancement in understanding and diagnostics.
If I recall correctly, there was a recent study demonstrating specifically ADHD-like structural brain changes in neurotypical people related to heavy-ish social media use on smartphones for a period of 2+ years.
It cannot show causality, of course, but it did account for baseline ADHD symptoms meaning it showed that children not considered as having ADHD developed said symptoms and structural brain changes relative to the amount of screen time they were exposed to within the time span of two years and more.
"Our results indicate that screen time is associated with ADHD symptoms and their development over time. Consistent with our findings, previous studies have reported a positive correlation between screen time and ADHD symptoms [4, 5, 10,11,12,13]. However, most studies have not specifically examined the longitudinal relationship between screen time and ADHD symptom development, leaving this association unclear [46]. By controlling for baseline ADHD symptom levels, our study provides evidence that longer screen time is associated with ADHD symptom development after two years, in children initially aged 9–10 years. [...]
Our study comprehensively examined the relationship between screen time and brain structural development, revealing associations of screen time with the right temporal pole, left superior frontal gyrus, and left rostral middle frontal gyrus. These brain regions are involved in cognitive functions, including working memory, language processing, and attention [51,52,53], suggesting that screen-based activities may influence cognitive development."
I wonder if it's the content? With TV and even a really frenetic game, you're still focused on a single narrative or task. With SM it can be new topic every 5 seconds for hours.
Hey now, let's not blame screens for what is essentially a social media problem. I'm pretty sure me tooling around on Linux learning the system and bash scripting is not giving me adhd.
I think the study supports that. All screens are not equal- there’s a big difference between sitting down to watch a 2 hour movie with your family and scrolling Tik Tok.
Tbf, Linux is karmic. When overwhelmed by emails, documents, excel, random aggressively annoying stuff of office stuff, I open full screen a old school terminal and do ls -l /, and I find peace
RIght but the rise in screen use is also a rise in awareness of what ADHD is and what the symptoms are because people started talking about it all more openly and sharing info.
I only started to try and get diagnosed 4 years ago because I saw a bunch of posts on social media listing tendencies of people with ADHD. I would bet that a lot of parents do the same.
Yes. I am thankful I presented more like a boy as a kid. My parents got me diagnosed when I was 11-ish. Tried therapy before going to meds. I have 2 other siblings who got diagnosed later. My dad is struggling now and stresses about dementia or something similar (tests and scans say it isn't that). I am like.... Uhh pretty sure you have adhd too, just a milder version. He isn't sure. I was like... You use to drink diet mountain dew like it was going out of style and it didn't keep you awake. He's retirement age and says he doesn't want to mess with getting a diagnosis. Meanwhile his doom piles and various projects just exist.
Exactly, that highlights the absurdity of the premise. It's like blaming cars for vehicle accidents. They're just the medium these phenomena happen within.
The title comes off as technophobic, not scientific.
ADHD is a neurological condition, like autism. You CANNOT get it during your lifetime, and therefore cannot get it as a result of using social media. What is possible, though, is that people with ADHD using social media stop being able to mask their condition.
It sounds like Sweden has expanded their diagnostic criteria to be very inclusive, which likely not only picked up way more ADHD kids but also picked up a lot of kids without ADHD.
It is possible for people to damage their dopamine system later in life, even if they began their lives developmentally normal. Abuse of certain dopaminergic drugs can do it. It isn't impossible that people who abuse social media are receiving a massive dopamine dose 24/7 that desensitizes the brain and causes physical changes similar to dopaminergic abuse are also experiencing a downregulation or damage to the reward system that results in attentional issues that are ADHD like.
It doesn't mean they have literal ADHD, but an ADHD-like condition that may be temporary (solved by a long detox) or permanent (structural damage that doesn't go away).
I can see that, although to be honest I'm severely skeptical that social media use actually does this. For instance, being accustomed to very quick and shifting stimulus, and then having trouble doing without it, isn't at all like an ADHD symptom. What it might be like, is a drug dependence. It's also possible that if people become accustomed to thinking faster (consider: downloading information in The Matrix) it's just the new baseline for your system, and if you want to go back to slow information it could take re-training again. That's not even a 'condition', just a normalization of brain function depending on your environment.
But I think my main argument is that none of this is really "like" ADHD. Yes, ADHD is characterized by a lack of attention, but really that's not accurate. And yes, dopamine is part of it. But that doesn't mean it's the same problem with dopamine. For example, executive dysfunction isn't really relevant to the social media addiction issue. Another common feature of ADHD is being overwhelmed by an inability to background stimulae, where all stimulae are simultaneously experiences as being "important." This means you can't focus on what's salient, but it's not because you lack attention per se, but because you're being bombarded constantly by everything. So again, social media won't do this to you. ADHD is much more complex than just being the kind of person who 'flits from thing to thing quickly'. ADHD doesn't even have to have that trait at all.
In short, what they're describing is just something else.
I doubt that someone doom-scrolling tiktok is training their brain to be a hyper-learner, matrix-style. They're just superficially consuming highly stimulating dopamine spike content, and have a hard time engaging with anything that doesn't offer continual and intense reward (aka long-form content, real life).
It is akin to a drug dependence, but it's a drug dependence that's got some similarities with ADHD - specifically, it's a dopaminergic drug dependence, it strongly stimulates the reward center and appears to damage it, resulting in normal tasks offering insufficient reward to hold your attention. Executive function is driven in part by your brain assigning sufficient reward to tasks, and if your brain can't do that, regardless of the reason, you're going to have an attention disorder. Not 'ADHD', and I specified that in the comment you replied to, but 'ADHD-like' in that it's an issue with the reward system that makes executive function and regulation, task initiation and adherence and so on more difficult.
Like. I get all of the “correlation doesn’t equal causation”arguments in the comments here, but the complete denial that social media isn’t ruining our attention spans seems a bit disingenuous.
I do not have attention issues, but social media gets into my brain in a way that I have to actively stop myself at times, and I see it worse in others I’m close with.
SM is definitely exacerbating ADHD in those who have it, and, at the least, creating ADHD symptoms in those who would otherwise go undiagnosed.
Saying social media causes ADHD is about on par with saying paracetemol causes Autism. Utter nonsense, and an insult to people that actually struggle with neurodivergence on a daily basis
Saying that, I'm sure the rise of social media and short form highly stimulating content doesn't help undiagnosed kids that have ADHD unknowingly
Is it tho? Its literally retraining the brain to act in a neurodivergent way. I think there is some evidence to modern society pushing some over the threshold into something like an ADHD diagnosis.
I don't think its pushing tons but it might be a finger on the scale because the overstimulation present and attention required changes things a bit.
Yes, it is a good analogy. ADHD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder, it is not something that can be acquired. Furthermore, because of the way it is named there is a lot of focus on the attention deficit aspect but actually the symptoms of ADHD are much more far ranging. Many of the symptoms that are most impactful are not attention related.
It's not even a question to me, I can see my own mental decline after smartphones became a thing. Once upon a time I could sit down and read half of a book, now I sometimes close reddit and reopen it instantly right after like it's normal.
This article has some awful science communication.
Yes, I acknowledge the study finds that on a societal level there's a general mild trend towards inattentive behaviour.
This is a world apart from clinical ADHD diagnosis, which is a deficit in executive function. In the UK, there's huge waiting lists for assessment, which is a big deal. It takes weeks to fill in the form and it's a grueling process.
For context, in the UK, the current heath minister did not like the previous government report when it came back saying the was a vast under diagnosis rate for ADHD and autism.
They have launched a new report into what is driving mental health and support services (because we've underfunded these for at least 15 maybe 20 years and they're hanging by a thread).
Basically we have zero confidence in the heath minister, Wes Streeting, after the botched Cas report where he consulted with anti trans groups and didn't take info account any lived experience of trans people. Or the wider Labour government, who have basically said that disabled and unemployed people cost too much and we need to get the benefit bills down.
Using social media may impair children’s attention
Researchers have investigated a possible link between screen habits and ADHD-related symptoms in children.
Children who spend a significant amount of time on social media tend to experience a gradual decline in their ability to concentrate. This is according to a comprehensive study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Pediatrics Open Science, where researchers followed more than 8,000 children from around age 10 through age 14.
The use of screens and digital media has risen sharply in the past 15 years, coinciding with an increase in ADHD diagnoses in Sweden and elsewhere. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Oregon Health & Science University in the USA have now investigated a possible link between screen habits and ADHD-related symptoms.
The study followed 8,324 children aged 9–10 in the USA for four years, with the children reporting how much time they spent on social media, watching TV/videos and playing video games, and their parents assessing their levels of attention and hyperactivity/impulsiveness.
Social media stands out
Children who spent a significant amount of time on social media platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or Messenger, gradually developed inattention symptoms; there was no such association, however, for watching television or playing video games.
The thing is, just because they are diagnosed doesn't mean they have it. Another study has shown that short form social media content, such as tik tok? Can cause a lot of ADHD esque symptoms, in neural typical people.
Video games actually helped me with my ADHD. It trained my brain to focus on a single task for longer periods of time to acquire a desired outcome. I'm not surprised that these short form videos have the opposite effect. They're basically training you to stare at your screen and receive dopamine, not actually work for anything.
I think there are people in the comments who are missing the point here. Screen usage is not causing ADHD, but screen usage has definitely "helped" identify children who have ADHD. Putting limits on social media and screen usage won't decrease how many people have ADHD and ironically the screen usage may have helped identify individuals who wouldn't have been identified otherwise.
Any talk about regulating social media or screen usage is irrelevant to how many people have ADHD and you'd figure in a time where we're much more aware of survivorship bias that especially in the science subreddit - people wouldn't be jumping to conclusions and drawing correlation with causation.
Or, idk, like any of these changes the last 15 years:*
Mental health has been destigmatized
ADHD/Neurodivergency has been in the general media a ton lately.
We have learned a lot recently around neurodivergency and the different types of ADHD/Autism.
Mental Health resources & access is plentiful
Insurance providers actually cover a lot of medication & treatments.
Any of those could contribute to people feeling more comfortable in seeking treatment/diagnoses which would lead to an uptick in cases.
I'm sure that children who only consume short form video/social media content have a hard time paying attention. But I don't think that is due to a "chemical imbalance" like a lack of production of norepinephrine(which is commonly the reason those diagnosed with ADHD struggle) and more to do with the fact that they've trained themselves to only focus on quick bits of information.
Tv and video games dont have sub 60 second dopamine payoffs. It is in minutes if not hours. For example even something as simple a call of duty, match is 15 mins usually, that is when you get your dopamine of a win or a loss, which would in turn need another 15 to catch a win. Cartoon eps are 20 mins(after credits and opening).
Tiktok/shorts are sub 3 minutes, usually under 90 seconds. That is a 10x difference between dopamine payoff in games(at least), and 13.(3)x with tv.
The social media vs TV/games split is the interesting part. That hints it's not “screen time” but feed design, notifications, variable rewards. Still, even with longitudinal data you’ve got self‑selection and reverse causality. Kids with emerging ADHD traits might just gravitate to fast, fragmented platforms.
Ok but ADHD is a structural and chemical brain difference.
So are we finding that phone/ipad-use causes these differences to form in brains that were previously neurotypical?
Or is the study just picking up on kids with ADHD having more trouble with device-addiction/overuse, as a symptom of ADHD?
Or is this study just saying that the kids get a shorter attention span, and connecting it to ADHD because that is one of the symptoms? Because that's a huge oversimplification of what ADHD is. I have ADHD and I don't struggle with inattentiveness almost at all.
In the past 15 years identifying the spectrum of ADHD has increased so has ADHD increased in people or has the spectrum and it’s identification simply gotten better
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.
Do you have an academic degree? We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. Click here to apply.
User: u/mvea
Permalink: https://news.ki.se/using-social-media-may-impair-childrens-attention
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Social media is overstimulating. Back when I was a kid, my knowledge cravings were just met by books and available media. I would watch the same movies every day but its only when there is a TV set up. There is a natural downtime just to play, talk to friends, and occupy myself with other things.
With phones, it's easy to scroll for hours taking in so much information for a quick dopamine spike. When you are bored, you don't find something exciting to do, you just go online again and do the same scrolling.
As an adult, I could somehow develop self awareness and comparison to the time I didn't have social media. A lot of children never knew anything else but alleviate their boredom with screens.
[deleted]
My folks are absolutely addicted to their phones.
I screw around on my phone a fair amount like practically everyone else. But I still have that "this is not an appropriate time to look at my phone" control. They are glued to their phones. If it so much as chimes, no matter how dumb the notification, they will check it and spend time investigating it with a gravity that no phone notification deserves.
its absolutely wild how much our parent/grandparent generation sucks. "Dont believe everything on the internet" and "Stop staring at the screen you'll rot your brain/eyes/whatever"
Now we're adults and what do they do.....
I've seen similar with a lot of the older generation
Yea, it's pretty dark that we got to the point that TV and video games are relatively much better options. Bring back books, board games, outdoor play and just using your imagination as much as possible!
I finally found someone that likes board games a bit. Our Friday and sat nights are Scrabble because we are broke. We love our time together.
There are usually boardgame trading/selling groups on Facebook in your city if you want to save some money while switching things up. Can easily get some fancy games half off in near mint condition. Board game people buy way too many boardgames and eventually need to make physical space so they offload games they're not playing anymore.
If you like Scrabble, you do you! But note that nowadays there are pretty good modern games that can be played with spare parts, or a regular deck of playing cards. Or print and play! And tend to rival the best selling games pretty decently.
I taught my daughter to play Regicide the other day, and she had a blast, and begged me to play more. And we have plenty of more expensive games around. You can check many other games with a regular deck in BoardGameGeek.
And if you want something with more "board" than "card" feeling, search for free print and play games. You may be a bit overwhelmed if you are only used to the classics, but modern board games are an absolute delight. Game design has improved amazingly well over the years.
And 200 hundred years ago novels, like "Die Leiden des Jungen Werther" were seen as immoral wastes of time that were turning the youth suicidal.
Like maybe the moralization of media is not accurate and not helpful. Games and tv are still enriching and engaging art forms.
Dose is key... Too much of anything turns the brain to mush..
The idea that board games are inherently superior to video games is strange.
I'm guessing it's to do with human interaction and being face to face with people. Rather than just a screen
Playing videogame together in-person is a thing.
As someone that had done both it's not the same thing.
There's a massive social difference with a physical board. When everything is projected on a screen all that focus goes on the screen. All logic is handled by a computer.
When something's laid out on a table and everyone has to interact with the same pieces, rules have to be discussed and enforced by the whole group. this changes the dynamic completely
I haven’t experienced that since the Nintendo 64 days. All my friends play every Friday night from our own homes.
There’s still a slight difference. Being around people, at least for me, makes the whole social thing feel more rewarding to a certain degree. Also, when you sit down to play a game there’s usually more movement going on than if you’re glued to a screen.
Not coming for video games here. I hate board games. Just saying.
Sitting down next to people and playing together is a thing
Board games are typically played around a central table, and things only happen when people move the pieces amongst each other.
Local multiplayer in games is typically played with everyone side-by-side looking at the same screen, and the game itself handles its own components.
Both are social activities, but there's a fundamental difference in how the social side of each works. It's like how reading printed books in paper is very similar to, but still has differences from, listening to an audiobook.
Increasingly less common there aren't nearly as many couch co op games as there used to be
What’s your point, I’m genuinely confused?
Like LAN parties or playing Wii? Or like people playing cards?
My point was that in a board game setting there’s usually a lot more adjustment of position, conversation breaks, preparing food, etc. Gaming with friends can result in hours of being almost motionless, which is great fun, but horrible for your body.
Hes making a point to make one. Sure thats a thing but theres barely any co op games made today anyway for a splitscreen. I game a LOT and I enjoy it, sometimes with friends but mostly solo. No need to pretend the people I have good interactions with online are real friends
This site is full of people who probably play video games more than the general population, and some people get weirdly defensive of that hobby.
Comments are proving you right while trying to prove you wrong…
This is also a thread on a study pointing to a problem that has given a pass to TV and video games. The comments are instead full of whether video games are actually bad or not, in ways well beyond the scope of the study.
I miss when all these comments would have been removed so we could discuss whatever is relevant to the findings of the paper. I used to learn so much from the people here.
Because "video games bad" is a tired old trope that should go away already.
Lots of us experienced some pretty significant bullying for our interests, so of course we get defensive.
Its exhausting to be told all my problems in life come from an engaging art form that gives my life extra structure and purpose. Like that doesn't even make sense.
Are we supposed to pretend that we'd spend whatever time not playing games suddenly being the most productive person in the world? This is a common fallacy, but its simply not true, people don't suddenly change their lives with that extra time.
Maybe you don't realize that some of us moved after school and most of our friends live in other states or countries? If I turn off the games I play with my friends I'm not suddenly able to teleport them to my city.
And the idea that driving to a strip mall to play board games with strangers is so so much better than enjoying games, and preserving/building already existing relationships, seems to be grounded in nothing but some kind of "internet bad, screens bad, video games bad" mentality.
Yeah very true
While they aren't superior as a general category, board games don't usually include such predatory models as are overwhelmingly prevalent in the Free To Play game ecosystem, or live-service games.
And those are a very large portion of the market.
Plus sitting at a table playing Wingspan and talking is more social forward than playing another round of Counter-Strike or even a couch co-op game with a friend next to you.
I have a board game night, I play video games almost every other night and it’s demonstrably different.
Since board game rules are adjudicated by the players, not a machine, it develops social skills more directly. Your opponent can't table flip a video game if you're being a sore winner.
Fair bit of chit chatting at a table that doesn’t happen on CoD servers…I mean sure the comments on the honour of my Mother are technically social…
online COD isn't the only type of game. Mario kart with 3 friends in your living room is still a thing.
[deleted]
most videogames aren't live service games TBF. I agree live service games are trash though.
[deleted]
You can play videogames in-person btw.
You can but the vast majority don’t.
The modern board game market with its limited time kickstarter complete sets and constant expansions isn't that different of a model anymore, unfortunately. Obviously not as predatory but the board game market is not immune to people trying to wring every last buck out of our pockets.
At least a boardgame doesn't shove reminders in my face as soon as I open the box. It still feels like my decision to buy an addon, you know?
Right, you have to go to a store to get those signals. When you open up a brand new game box, there might be a sheet of paper or two suggesting you get expansions or companions but it’s never going to interrupt play to ask you to buy something.
Yeah. You don’t get a warning from Catan that you won’t be able to play with your friends because they have the Knights and Cities Expansion and you don’t.
When they’re younger, like 4-7, board games are def better than video games. Easier to learn, manipulate pieces, etc
That age range I'd broadly agree.
It isn't entirely black and white, but in context of a discussion about increased ADHD symptoms, the clearly superior option to combat that is board games.
Video games have benefits, but for patience, concentration, and deep strategy, studies show board games are much better.
What if I read books on my phone?!
I like them, so many ebooks available and many are free from libraries. I do occasionally get distracted, so I'll sometimes put my phone in Airplane mode when reading.
Oh I like them too, ever hear of ocean of PDFs(.com)? Loads of free PDFs/ebooks
The content being consumed is good since it requires lengthy engagement and juggling of characters and their stories, themes, morals etc just like real books.
Although your poor eyes with all that direct blue light, turn the screen to a warm light if you can.
Or consider a Kobo or Kindle if you like screens and hate holding heavy books, bonus it removes temptations from notifications. Because on a phone the light being a backlight is behind the screen and shone right into your face while on an ereader the light is a frontlight at the sides of the screen but in front of it, lighting it, then it is reflected to you just like a real book under a lamp would be.
It's my favourite purchase, be wary of store limitations though, Kobo misses some popular titles while Amazon Kindle has all the books but none of the friendly consumer practices of letting you actually own your ebooks. That said, there are ways to back up your data. coughCalibrecough
You'd get square eyes.
I think the type of video game can really play a factor. My son plays Fortnite and Roblox. I dismissed them initially as mind numbing and depthless. But he’s had me play them with him and my mind has changed. There’s surprisingly a lot to teach.
For Fortnite, he has to make quick change decisions on loadout and keep track of an ever changing inventory and figure out how to win with options that aren’t his preferred. He has to remember maps, recognize landmarks, strategize locations based on supplies vs combatant density. Those are the only way to win since you start every round at the same level as everyone else with the same loadout. I’m flabbergasted by how quick he adapts to situations.
For Roblox, he started with the brainrot games, which are admittedly low effort collection slogs. But they require patience. Then he moved to Fisch and that’s full of puzzles, and budgeting and opportunities for thoughtful comparisons in equipment strategy, along with more patience while trying to catch what you need or want. Then there’s trading with random people where he deals with trust, negotiation, and skepticism. And he’s had to deal with the disappointment of receiving something inferior when trading or buying.
I’m probably reading way too much into these simple games, but as a parent, I try to take a deeper look at everything he does.
I am 100% guilty of this. I will also say people used to just…be bored. Sometimes there wasn’t anything exciting to do.
I think that’s really REALLY important.
I did a month long hike across few years ago. No cell service. I just walked and sometimes chat with the other person, sometimes just be silent. It took two weeks, but on day 15 or so…
I started day dreaming VIVIDLY. Like I used to in grade school. Just full detailed hilarious/interesting/dramatic scenarios playing out in my head.
It stopped when I got back and I had the ability to just look at my phone again.
It’s not just the availability of content now. The issue is we’re never truly bored. Our brains need to be bored every once in a while.
I’ve noticed that when I’m reading longform content like novels regularly, the daydreaming/staring off into space becomes much more vivid and happens more often.
I agree about boredom, but I think it's something even bigger than that.
It's not just boredom, it's having mental down time to process your thought.
I've noticed with the young people in my life (and "young" here encompasses everything from small children to my 20-something nieces and nephews), there is almost zero "I am alone with my thoughts and can process them in a quiet environment" time in their lives at all. They are always stimulated by something.
I find it entirely uncoincidental that they are also all universally very very anxious.
yeah, even just standing in line at the store, it's easy to just whip out your phone and check socials.
I notice with my children that starting from the age of three or four, they start to develop the capacity to be bored. My four-year-old sometimes just lies on the floor for half an hour. It starts out with him whining that he's bored and then transitions into him telling me he's reading a book or watching a video in his head. He'll whisper his stories to himself.
My children have a much larger capacity for waiting than their peers. Sitting at the bus stop or waiting at the doctors, they just kind of daydream. Might be nurture or nature, who knows.
Note that my kids are allowed a twenty minute video maybe two times a week. They do not watch TV or have a tablet or access to our phones.
"Stopping cues" have been designed out of society. Literal points that you would reach that tell you "this thing ends here".
Back in the day, TV used to end for the night at like 11pm (at least here in the UK anyway, same in the US?). The news was something you got in a 30 minute chunk by watching TV at 6pm, or from reading a 50 page newspaper once a day. You got to the last page, closed the newspaper and that was it; the news was done.
Now the news is right there in front of you 24/7. There is no end to social media; it's just an endless feed that you literally cannot reach the end of. It's designed to entice you to keep scrolling, watch more, engage more, rot your brain more. Watched some 15 second brainrot reel? The next one bounces up from the bottom of the screen, enticing you to scroll some more.
There are no stopping cues any more.
Staring at a screen all day makes you feel wired.
Spend a solid 8 hours staring at a screen, social media, whatever.
Next, try spending a solid 8 hours reading books.
Then see how you feel afterwards. Doing anything for 8 hours is grueling but you will feel exhausted after 8 hours of a screen time vs a book.
Yeah i just did this.
And here I am scrolling instead of finding something to do….
The issue is that this data does not imply that ADHD develops after birth. That is a far too common misunderstanding that many people carry.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition tied to genetics and brain structure / brain function differences that begin prenatally, including differences in: Dopamine regulation patterns, differences in prefrontal cortex maturation, connectivity between attention systems
These traits exist in ADHD brains before screens, before childhood expectations, and even before birth.
To “cause ADHD,” screens would need to change those traits — and research shows they cannot.
Screens can:
Make kids more distractible in the moment.
Reduce patience for slow tasks
Interfere with sleep (which impacts focus).
Lead to “attention scatter” after overstimulation
These effects happen in all children, not just neurodivergent ones.
But they represent temporary performance changes, not permanent brain wiring changes.
Eg. If you’re tired, hungry, or stressed, your attention gets worse — but that doesn’t mean you “developed ADHD.”
Overuse of screens can cause functional attention problems, not ADHD.
Influence on skill development ≠ causing a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Among those that are diagnosed ADHD, increases can be due to
Screens create fast-paced stimulation, constant novelty, and very fast reward loops. This can make a kid WITHOUT ADHD to be impatient, restless, easily bored, more distractible
Those behaviours look like ADHD, so people assume screens caused ADHD. But they don’t — they just temporarily affect attention in everyone, not just neurodivergent kids.
This is not to say that these kids are diagnosed with ADHD, but rather that lay-people, like parents or a teacher, might assume they do.
Further to that, ADHD medication effects non-ADHD brains extremely differently than it does in ADHD brains. What might make a non-ADHD brain function worse, will often make an ADHD brain able to function better. Again, these are mechanical differences in how the brain functions.
Screens may worsen existing symptoms, but you can't just re-write how the brain is wired during development in the womb.
Regarding the anecdotes - I don't think it's wise to use your childhood as a reference when plenty of ADHD people had childhoods just like yours.
While there is an obvious correlation to the increase in screens, and the increase in ADHD being diagnosed, they simply don't change how your child's brain is wired. They are either born with an ADHD brain, or they are not. Just like with autism.
While we're sharing anecdotes,
I have ADHD, as does my wife who was literally born and raised across the world from me. This isn't just a North America thing. She likely wouldn't be diagnosed if she never moved here. Accessibility and awareness cannot be understated as important to this discussion.
I literally grew up with barely any TV at all, with no video games, and I would go through hundreds of books a year. My wife's childhood was similar.
I was always one of the most well-read in my classes. From the moment I could read, I had a higher reading level than expected for my age. This, despite learning disabilities (autism/adhd).
I played outside a lot too. I played alone when I was younger, and later with the neighborhood kids almost every day.
I was incredibly creative. I made my own games and would play them with my friends. Later on that became D&D and board games. I would write enormous worlds and stories. I would draw and craft.
Yes I played on the computer as I got into teen years and it became my escape from abuse, disability, marginalization, and things that caused diagnosed PTSD and CPTSD... but I had clear ADHD (and autism) symptoms long before that.
My mind was always turning, always absorbing everything around me, like ADHD brains are programmed to do. And it still does that.
It cannot be understated how common it is to find undiagnosed but OBVIOUSLY neurodivergent people among Gen X and older. Many of whom have long since learned to live with their issues and won't get diagnosed for many reasons, even if they are struggling.
The way ADHD brains work, being unregulated without screens isn't any better than being unregulated with screens.
What you said is very true, but I think it would be more accurate to phrase it this way:
A child now-a-days will have a lot of data on how their mind is with screens, but no data on their mind without screens.
So without that perspective, it may be a bit more difficult (bit not impossible) to identify what is the best middle-ground of screen usage for their specific flavour of ADHD
My favourite is when you see the Question "what did you do when you were bored and had no phone?" And all the answers are "went out and played, games console, rode our bike etc" missing the times you are sat at a bus stop and the next one isn't for an hour. I used to design stuff better but i would be in agony if i didn't have my phone for an hour waiting for the train.
The title needs clarification: it’s the “use” of screens, not screens themselves rising (hello r/TVtoohigh), and that’s a mediaspeak metonym for the use of portable networked electronics, which quickly gets boiled down to social media use, which has its own issues independent of the screen or other technology involved.
Also, as someone with adhd diagnosed in my mid 30s because I have inattentive I hate this claim that technology is "causing" adhd.
Sure, I can see general attention spans being effected, but adhd is more than that. I see it as more as we now know more about adhd and can spot or easier as well as having distractions everywhere might make certain forms of it easier to spot.
Looking back I had so many obvious symptoms as a kid, but I wasnt a hyperactive boy who disrupted class so I was ignored.
I was just lost in my own head that was filled with noise and random thoughts. I had issues with motivation and memory. I did well on tests, but homework was torture and I'd forget to do it most of the time.
Adhd has historically been diagnosed by how "annoying" you are to other people. In same cases it still is as there are providers who still think we "grow out of it" or that you can't have adhd and autism at the same time.
We don't grow out of it, we develop coping mechanisms that are usually unhealthy and unsustainable. I basically did everything last minute because the anxiety and panic was the only thing that could overpower my executive dysfunction. I was probably close to if not in the early stages of burnout when I finally got diagnosed.
i didn't get diagnosed until I failed out of university and became nearly suicidally depressive.
Couldn't have been adhd though because i wasn't annoying though, right? just a procrastinator who didn't apply himself and was always disorganized and forgetful and daydreamed a lot and never did his homework, but did well on tests so it had to have been something else of course
I am so sorry that happened to you.
I didn't have it quite as bad as others I've seen. I managed to graduate college with a lot of effort and my industry seems to require a certain number of neurodivergent people to work, so I got lucky there.
But I would always get to a point where I would just rot on the couch when I wasn't working on something with external pressure. I couldn't even get myself to work on things I wanted to do, much less things I needed to do around the house. I never felt accomplished when something was done, just relief that it was over.
But between wondering how much better things would have been for me if I had been diagnosed when I was a kid and seeing how much worse other people have had it I cannot accept how society has failed us. It's why I comment on these topics because we need our voices heard to even start countering the stigma.
I tried nearly every class of meds for 'depression' since my adolescence, it was only in my mid twenties I found a psych who recognized the symptoms and ADHD meds were the wonder drug I needed. Living with untreated ADHD can cause depression and anxiety, and antidepressants are generally not effective against this as the underlying cause is still there.
That tracks, I was actually diagnosed with anxiety and depression first, tried treating that - first with SSRIs for a few months which I absolutely loathed the side effects of, changed to wellbutrin which was better but still not as helpful as id hoped, then about a year after that first anxiety/depression diagnoses is when I started getting tested and diagnosed for adhd. Was like a two month process for me, so many tests and stuff was kind of fun in hindsight but a lot of appointments which was a hassle
That sounds exactly like me as a kid with ADHD. Even down to being good at tests but terrible at everything else school related. I don't think anyone thought I didn't have it because of being good at tests though. But because nobody actually explained to me what ADHD is besides not being able to pay attention, I was always confused why I was going to test but bad at everything else
Historically girls were not diagnosed with adhd. The increases in people diagnosed with it, besides being from better screening may come from the increases associated with more diagnosis of girls and women.
Girls are more likely to be inattentive, or at least seem inattentive. I suspect a lot of how ADHD is expressed or perceived in childhood has to be down to social expectation and pressure.
"Boys will be boys" is the mentality of people who don't actually parent boys, but it is so ingrained in society that even people who do try might not try hard enough. So you get boys who have hyperactive ADHD more likely to act out and be physical since they are "allowed" to do that more often.
Girls get the social pressure of needing to "behave" way more. So there tends to be more masking behaviors much earlier in life. Any movement like stemming will also get reprimanded more often.
I know when I was in middle school I has this thing I did that the adults called a "nervous tick" and would tell me to stop even though I wasn't disrupting anyone. I would move my hand as if drumming on stuff, but when I was in class I would do it lightly on my arm or leg so I didn't make noise. Didn't matter.
I don't think the expectations to "behave" are a good thing at all. I'm tired of seeing female socialization reframed as a good thing. This is the mentality that discourages girls from working on arcane projects.
I didn't say it was?
This hits close to home. Have you been taking medication to help with the disorder?
Yes. Started with Adderall and been taking it since. It doesn't get rid of the ADHD but it helps with motivation and focus as well as general mood regulation. Before medication I would be much more irritable and had constant background anxiety I didn't know was there until it went away.
It won't work as well if I forget to stay hydrated, have poor sleep, or am depressed because of everything going on in the world, but it still keeps me at a higher functional state than I would be without it.
But I still have ADHD and still have to manage it, but medication makes managing it easier. I also still have autism, but that doesn't hinder me like ADHD does.
Not OP, but he described what I went through almost word for word, taking meds have helped me focus on menial tasks that I previously would require an immense amount of effort just to start.
I also had other issues that exarcerbated my inability to focus, which were also kinda resolved with medication.
Just got back into college at 32 for a masters after 10 years away. I was diagnosed back in September (although I believe I was diagnosed in elementary school at some point but never really got the help I needed to be successful in school).
I’m honestly gobsmacked by how well this described my experience, especially with being in your own head so much. I’d add that now that I’m back, I’m noticing my problems much more than in my undergrad, which I thought was just burnout. The worst part is feeling like you took decent notes and gathered all the information from a lecture just to feel like you go neuralized by MIB between the lecture and the assignments or tests (especially if they’re written SAT style).
I’ll say that the notion that video games don’t see that same issue, I’m not so sure. Then again, maybe games were just my coping mechanism but I feel they certainly played a role in my inability to pay attention.
I’ve deleted most social media (aside from this and Bluesky) and it’s helpful yes, but I think there’s more at play here than social media alone.
Except TikTok, that’s the social media equivalent to nicotine.
Something I learned at some point in grade school is that I had two options: Pay attention or take notes I wouldn't be able to read later anyway.
I had so many teachers give me crap for not taking notes despite me getting As on most of their tests.
For video games, I still enjoy them, but up until about 4 years ago I didn't realize much of my drive to play was escapism for other things I have going on. working through all of that made me happier, but then I realized I couldn't get myself to play anything unless I could hyper focus on it.
That was when I started thinking I should seek a diagnosis, especially after reconnecting with friends after I hadn't seen since the start of the pandemic that had gotten diagnosed and how much more focused they were.
I was almost 40 when I was finally diagnosed. My mom spoke to my pediatrician about the possibility when I was in elementary school but he refused to look into it. He said I can finish a 600 page book in a night and am not disruptive in class so obviously its not ADD.
Exactly what I think about it. ADHD is not something you develop because of things you choose to do. Like what the hell is that. And it's a hell of a lot more than just being inattentive when people want you to be attentive.
I don't think it caused ADHD but screens and social media can be very harmful to attention span and dopamine. I want to state that ADHD is very real but the amount of teens and young adults I know who can't do anything without having constant dopamine and attention hits is staggering
And I agree that it certainly can be, but every time I see these articles it almost always calls it a "rise in ADHD" when that isn't what it is.
It comes off as sounding like the writer sees ADHD as a personal failing, not the developmental disability it is. As someone who was gaslit that I didn't have it as a kid because I was told I was "so smart" and "just needed to apply yourself" and "stop being so lazy", I am wary of how people word things when they talk about ADHD.
There are doctors who don't think ADHD is a thing and the average person still has a massive stigma about ADHD, as well as autism, when they know nothing about it. This is part of the reason I don't tell my coworkers I'm taking Adderall unless I have to because I have heard horror stories of people telling their jobs about their ADHD and then suddenly they go from good reviews to negative ones. Sure, some might be embellished, but there's enough there to make it a concern.
And when it comes to stimulants they talk about us all being "high" or "taking speed" because they don't understand how stimulants effect ADHD brains differently. I can drink caffeine an hour before bed and have a great night sleep. I didn't understand the concept of a power nap before taking Adderall.
My medication calms me down and focuses me, yet there are a lot of people who would start seeing my every action as manic if they knew I was taking Adderall. It just helps me get laundry done and actually clean more often than once every couple of months and do any other task without dragging my feet every time.
Exactly. Being hooked on screens and social media is a behavior problem driven by dopamine loops you trained yourself into. It creates restlessness, distractibility, and a craving for quick hits of stimulation. But that is not ADHD. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition rooted in how the brain regulates attention, executive function, and impulse control. You can put the phone down and improve screen-induced attention issues with habits and discipline. ADHD does not turn off when you delete apps or take a weekend away from your phone. One is conditioning. The other is wiring.
There's also the aspect of it being a "trend" to get diagnosed. There's a private clinic charging $3k to diagnose you and if you don't have ADHD, you'll get your money back. Apparently 1 in 500 doesn't have ADHD:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/ost/framgangsrik-adhd-klinik-tjanar-miljoner-pa-slarviga-utredningar
Plenty of adults now getting a diagnose in their 40s and 50s:
https://www.femina.se/i-rampljuset/svenska-kanda-kvinnor-med-adhd-diagnos-i-vuxen-alder/10652260
I'm not implying that it's made up or that screens don't have a negative effect but we have a very different view on ADHD than we did just a couple of decades ago.
The title is just way too long, it already makes the distinction you're asking for in the second half.
It’s time to treat social media platforms as we’ve come to treat cigarettes and alcohol — it should be illegal for children, at least in its current designed-to-be-addictive (profitable) format.
There is a fun government ad that will explain why that is a bad idea and what to do instead:
"Honest government ad. Social media ban" (Can't link to you tu be)
Banning children from social media and only "teaching children" won't work, you need to regulate social media companies (the addictiveness of algorthms and so forth).
But they wont do that. These tech companies have far too much money and lobbying power; so no meaningful change will happen. Even when confronted with evidence of how they are poisoning the mind of the youth.
The same thing was said about cigarette companies.
Meaningful change can absolutely happen.
Then why insist on fake solutions? Make everyone aware of the real solutions and vote for a party that will implement them.
Well id like to think that we are trying. But voting a party who will do the right thing is met with such extreme propaganda that it doesnt happen. At least in the US where these tech come from.
So it falls back on the user to have agency, in this case the parents have to set up boundries.
TikTok does not come from the US.
How is it a fake solution to remove people from social media? It might not be your favorite solution, but there's nothing fake about it. When it comes to government policy, there's rarely a perfect solution.
I really don't care how they kill social media if it actually happens, because butchering the Internet will be good for the vast majority of people.
It's a fake solution just as the traditional American mindset of puritanism toward sexuality is one and actually creates more teen pregnancies, etc. You will create young adults (and teens that manage to get around it, which they tend to find ways to) who are utterly illequipped to actually use it in a healthy way instead.
banning children from social media is a fake solution because with the excuse of "protecting the children" you get more surveillance (ID verification).
Real solutions :
Honestly, with all this AI slop, the Internet needs to die anyways.
Assuming you want to address children specifically and not simply make social media illegal worldwide, this is equivalent to banning kids from social media. 'Just regulate them' is not a magic wand, if you want them to avoid doing certain things with children, that implies banning children from certain functions, which implies the ability to detect children, which implies online identity etc etc...
It's not an easy problem, but I wish people were a little more willing to commit to the actual technical and jurisdictional mechanisms required to 'just regulate bro'. Right now it feels a little like wanting to make theft illegal, but without cops, detectives, or receipts.
I don't think making it illegal will work tbh. The Techbros will age gate it and then do as they've done with everything else harmful on their platforms, from hate speech to misinformation, and do the absolute minimum of moderation largely focused on automatic and easily bypass-able systems without human oversight.
The only realistic solution is to regulate the platforms aggressively, and in the same way schools, hospitals, and other services have a duty of care to those who use them Social Media should have a legal duty of care to their users. Because the only way they're going to act in the interests of society is if we make not doing so financially ruinous.
Why not, several European countries are in the process of banning social media for under 16 and a few already started doing so.
and its already caused a huge amount of issues, mostly people having their verification id's (licenses / passports) being compromised and sold as data online.
Sounds like there is a need for more prescriptive regulation for KYC and updates to government issued digital id.
Just doesn't work. Even in places with digital ID its not very effective, or secure.
I regularly had to use Korean Social ID's to access korean online markets and gaming, and it was relatively easy to find someone's ID for free online. Likewise with accessing chinese social media platforms.
Well designed digital ids are ephemeral for validation. You maybe able to find someone’s info online but you can’t use it for anything.
Think onetime passcode.
It's already law in Australia.
Lot of comments here really wanting to push the responsibility of keeping kids safe online entirely to the government with ID verification.
Parents really dont want to parent, it seems. Its the parents job to understand what their child is doing online and to TEACH them how to use the internet safely, what to look out for, basic knowledge of what CAN happen on the internet if they are not careful. Its the parents job to limit that time in the screen. Not the governments.
If your child trusts a stranger on the internet more than you, you have failed as a parent.
Yep we have to regulate big tech to hell and back. We forget that social media was mostly fine before the algorithms came in. We have to ban algorithms, regulate rules on hate speech and misinformation
Yeah, but we seem to be fine when Roblox makes social media into a game and aims it at 8 to 12 year olds and says it's good for em.
I wont let my kids play it despite it being something they continually beg for.
It’s wild, when I was in 4th grade (2009), I was having the exact same argument with my mom about playing Roblox, an argument I lost of course.
Wild that not only is that still happening with other kids, but that Roblox has somehow only gotten worse since then.
The government should mandate that social media HAS to provide the option to turn off infinite scrolling. It’s bad for us, there’s no question about it and we should limit the ways it can harm us in the same way there are laws around advertising junk food to children, taxes on excessive sugar in drinks etc.
Absolutely not. The only way to achieve this is trough some form of digital ID, which would erode every notion of anonymity and privacy on the internet.
I don't mind showing ID when buying alcohol, I do however have a problem with showing ID to access websites where that ID can somehow be connected to what I do and say online.
Forget it, if children have to be mentally ill for me to keep my anonymity, so be it.
Exactly this. Imagine people getting arrested for what they say in social media (already happens a lot; especially in 3rd world countries) on a bigger scale. If anything ID verification will make the "algorithm" much stronger.
It's absolutely possible to develop technological solutions (like device-based authentication) that retain some or most privacy. And candidly the "privacy" thing is a red herring anyway - you don't have privacy online you have, at best, the illusion of privacy.
These companies have billions upon billions of dollars to spend on the best engineers in the world, the idea that the best we can do is scanning our drivers licenses for verification is total BS - the companies just need to be given the proper incentives to develop a verification system that works and retains whatever "privacy" you think you have.
I think prohibition won't work. Teaching responsible use is a better option.
It’s not about telling children they need more willpower in the face of algorythms meticulously designed to keep every single second of your free time. That never works. It’s about putting limits on the social media companies creating these algorythms
A child simply doesn't have the mental or physical ability to use will power to avoid harmful addictions like algorithms and junk food that why the government and parents need to play a role in protecting them
You can't teach people to use addictive things responsibly. This is why we have an obesity epidemic despite widespread knowledge that fatty and sugary foods are not healthy. You have to regulate to make things less addictive, teach people responsible use AND prevent them from becoming addicted in childhood when their brains are still developing.
Agree completely.
I used to smoke, quitting was hard and it did a number on my health.
I know today that foods designed to sit in the Goldilocks zone of carbs:fat are a real challenge for me, as well as short form content and other "socially acceptable" forms of overindulgence.
We are quick to ban drugs such as heroin, MDMA, cocaine, THC because they're bad for you.
In the UK through 2024 there were 1,732 heroin deaths, 31,000 obesity deaths, 23,000 alcohol deaths and 80,000 deaths through smoking. There are almost a quarter of a million people waiting for an ADHD assessment because they are struggling to cope in the modern world.
Human evolution was not prepared for the overabundance of addictive substances and activities. It's easy telling people to "just not do it" but the reality of the situation is that we cannot always fight our nature.
We are in a unique situation where we know this, and can take action but choose not to. We're all just rats in a Skinner box, pressing the pedal to get immediate gratification and our lives are worse for it.
Yeah. Because that has worked tremendously well.
If adults can't get a grasp on social media, there's no chance that children will have any form of self control. At this point social media needs ID verification(not a fan, but no other way forward) because children AND bots are a massive issue.
Or we can keep pretending everything is fine. It is what it is I guess.
This is such a frustrating response. These technologies and applications are designed specifically to exploit our neurocircuity. For those prone to overuse, you may as well recommend an alcoholic to drink responsibly.
Do you ever consider the scientific element?
This ^ There's lots of positive and constructive ways to use social media. I'm an artist and I tried curbing my "social media use" at some point back in high-school. Definitely felt the immediate backsliding from losing a lot motivation to finish art projects and long term there's probably a lot of opportunities I missed out on from fumbling what was essentially a growing small business.
I'm also an artist and there's a difference between mindlessly scrolling social media because you're bored and using social media in your small business.
Replace social media in your comment with any other addiction, then re-read it. This is exactly what addicts do to justify their addictions.
Social media's negatives have far outweighed any of its positives at least a decade ago if not more when it began it's extreme retention optimizations. It doesn't need to go away, but we can't keep pretending we aren't all addicted.
Wait, that makes it sounds like I was dealing drugs AND getting high off my own supply. And guess in some way that's true, if you count enjoying the arts as a negative way to use social media?
I think it's really important to clarify what exactly we are referring to as negative kinds of social media use, because even on the same site within the same circles of people, how people "use social media" can vary wildly.
What an absolute fking mess of a title leading us to people having meltdowns in the comment section. The paper clearly states that the variables they use leads to the conclusion that SM-use in kids means higher occurence of ADHD-like symptoms. It has nothing to do with screen time. And don’t nobody care about a surface level analysis on ADHD and diagnosis. I can’t be asked why am I even writing this comment?
Yeah, also, as someone with ADHD, I’m more likely to use more screens as a coping mechanism. So cause and effect are being mixed too.
It's a garbage title.
We know that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder and not an acquired affliction, which means that it's literally impossible for "screen time" - a thing which occurs after birth and formative development - to "cause".
What they are almost certainly observing is the confluence of
1) Increased awareness and better diagnostic mechanisms permitting increased diagnosis of people who were already in the population, and
2) An increase in highly visible, highly accessible diversions which are uniquely suited to appeal to ADHD brains being available, and thus being used by those people as coping tools.
Because a bot wrote this as engagement bait. Also lack of study does not mean it did not happen. We know more about it than we did pre 2k.
We've also seen an increased number of gay marriages since social media happened, guess its turning people gay too
I have to wonder if the rise in diagnoses is the result of more and better access to screening and treatment.
It's kinda like noting the rise of people who identify as trans and pointing out Wifi is also more common.
Yes definitely, I didn’t get diagnosed until recently because I thought adhd was constantly fidgeting, being super extroverted and hyperactive and yknow general super obvious stuff.
But when I was a kid I’d read books all the time and I’d get super obsessive when I got into books like I’d wake up and read then read on the school bus then on breaks and then on the way home.
I’d read books to help sleep but then read until Like 3am because I wanted to know what happened next.
Like I’ve always obsessively done stuff, a smart phone just exacerbates it.
ADHD is a spectrum and a lot of kids and their parents don’t even notice because they don’t show up in the obvious ways, but yeah smart phones are like the worst for ADHD because you need constant stimulation and instead of searching for it you can just be on your phone, it makes it super obvious.
Precisely this. There’s some evidence that social media of certain kinds or tablet games of certain kinds can exacerbate symptoms and it’s not the dumbest hypothesis, but I was an untreated ADHD kid in the 90s/early 2000s and I was lucky I was bright and sharp, cos getting work out of me was a nightmare, I was kicked out of class lots over minor interruptions, I one got 5 lunch time detentions for not doing homework from the same teacher in the same week, the guys down the bus station in a major city new me by name cos of how often I left my kit bag on there. I’m now on meds and they’re great and I just wish I had them earlier in life so much.
Taking screen time back to pre-social media/tablets etc., doesn’t fix ADHD, at best it might reduce symptoms a little bit. The reason everyone came forward (same as with being trans) is that’s a treatment exists that’s really bloody effective and nothing motivates people to come forward quite like effective care.
Like the association between increased ice cream consumption and increased number of drowning victims. There may be issues with social media, but we literly didn't have an ADHD diagnosis in Sweden until the middle 1990s (there was a DAMP diagnosis before), and it was treated as a young hyper boy issue, making many type inattentive and type combined folk not diagnosed until many decades later. Even type hyperactive that just fell through the cracks earlier.
If I recall correctly, in USA you weren't allowed to diagnose someone with both autism and adhd until like 2013 or somewhere there in that ballpark.
The estimated prevalence of genuine adhd is 5%, but in the uk for example only 0.6% of the population has been diagnosed. Ie to get everyone who has it diagnosed, almost 10x more diagnoses need to happen. The “sharp rise” in diagnosis is still much less than 10x, so very easily can be caused by better diagnosis
Shhhh, you can't point out those kinds of things. Better diagnostics and understandings revealing MORE diagnoses? And that also occurs alongside a period of time where X also is?? The correlation must be X and diagnosis, not the advancement in understanding and diagnostics.
If I recall correctly, there was a recent study demonstrating specifically ADHD-like structural brain changes in neurotypical people related to heavy-ish social media use on smartphones for a period of 2+ years.
Do you have a link to that study?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-025-03672-1
It cannot show causality, of course, but it did account for baseline ADHD symptoms meaning it showed that children not considered as having ADHD developed said symptoms and structural brain changes relative to the amount of screen time they were exposed to within the time span of two years and more.
"Our results indicate that screen time is associated with ADHD symptoms and their development over time. Consistent with our findings, previous studies have reported a positive correlation between screen time and ADHD symptoms [4, 5, 10,11,12,13]. However, most studies have not specifically examined the longitudinal relationship between screen time and ADHD symptom development, leaving this association unclear [46]. By controlling for baseline ADHD symptom levels, our study provides evidence that longer screen time is associated with ADHD symptom development after two years, in children initially aged 9–10 years. [...]
Our study comprehensively examined the relationship between screen time and brain structural development, revealing associations of screen time with the right temporal pole, left superior frontal gyrus, and left rostral middle frontal gyrus. These brain regions are involved in cognitive functions, including working memory, language processing, and attention [51,52,53], suggesting that screen-based activities may influence cognitive development."
I wonder if it's the content? With TV and even a really frenetic game, you're still focused on a single narrative or task. With SM it can be new topic every 5 seconds for hours.
Hey now, let's not blame screens for what is essentially a social media problem. I'm pretty sure me tooling around on Linux learning the system and bash scripting is not giving me adhd.
Linux is the biggest sign of ADHD (a joke).
Dang it I'm a statistic now
I think the study supports that. All screens are not equal- there’s a big difference between sitting down to watch a 2 hour movie with your family and scrolling Tik Tok.
It literally says no association with tv and video games in the title.
Tbf, Linux is karmic. When overwhelmed by emails, documents, excel, random aggressively annoying stuff of office stuff, I open full screen a old school terminal and do
ls -l /, and I find peaceThat and I was one of the first to get diagnosed with ADD back in 1991 when I was in 4th grade. We didn’t have social media back then
RIght but the rise in screen use is also a rise in awareness of what ADHD is and what the symptoms are because people started talking about it all more openly and sharing info.
I only started to try and get diagnosed 4 years ago because I saw a bunch of posts on social media listing tendencies of people with ADHD. I would bet that a lot of parents do the same.
Yes. I am thankful I presented more like a boy as a kid. My parents got me diagnosed when I was 11-ish. Tried therapy before going to meds. I have 2 other siblings who got diagnosed later. My dad is struggling now and stresses about dementia or something similar (tests and scans say it isn't that). I am like.... Uhh pretty sure you have adhd too, just a milder version. He isn't sure. I was like... You use to drink diet mountain dew like it was going out of style and it didn't keep you awake. He's retirement age and says he doesn't want to mess with getting a diagnosis. Meanwhile his doom piles and various projects just exist.
Doesn't this alone refute the premise of screens being the issue?
Not the screens themselves but the content that is consumed and the effects it has on people
Exactly, that highlights the absurdity of the premise. It's like blaming cars for vehicle accidents. They're just the medium these phenomena happen within.
The title comes off as technophobic, not scientific.
Suddenly 90% of 90s kids just had an epiphany
ADHD is a neurological condition, like autism. You CANNOT get it during your lifetime, and therefore cannot get it as a result of using social media. What is possible, though, is that people with ADHD using social media stop being able to mask their condition.
It sounds like Sweden has expanded their diagnostic criteria to be very inclusive, which likely not only picked up way more ADHD kids but also picked up a lot of kids without ADHD.
It is possible for people to damage their dopamine system later in life, even if they began their lives developmentally normal. Abuse of certain dopaminergic drugs can do it. It isn't impossible that people who abuse social media are receiving a massive dopamine dose 24/7 that desensitizes the brain and causes physical changes similar to dopaminergic abuse are also experiencing a downregulation or damage to the reward system that results in attentional issues that are ADHD like.
It doesn't mean they have literal ADHD, but an ADHD-like condition that may be temporary (solved by a long detox) or permanent (structural damage that doesn't go away).
I can see that, although to be honest I'm severely skeptical that social media use actually does this. For instance, being accustomed to very quick and shifting stimulus, and then having trouble doing without it, isn't at all like an ADHD symptom. What it might be like, is a drug dependence. It's also possible that if people become accustomed to thinking faster (consider: downloading information in The Matrix) it's just the new baseline for your system, and if you want to go back to slow information it could take re-training again. That's not even a 'condition', just a normalization of brain function depending on your environment.
But I think my main argument is that none of this is really "like" ADHD. Yes, ADHD is characterized by a lack of attention, but really that's not accurate. And yes, dopamine is part of it. But that doesn't mean it's the same problem with dopamine. For example, executive dysfunction isn't really relevant to the social media addiction issue. Another common feature of ADHD is being overwhelmed by an inability to background stimulae, where all stimulae are simultaneously experiences as being "important." This means you can't focus on what's salient, but it's not because you lack attention per se, but because you're being bombarded constantly by everything. So again, social media won't do this to you. ADHD is much more complex than just being the kind of person who 'flits from thing to thing quickly'. ADHD doesn't even have to have that trait at all.
In short, what they're describing is just something else.
I doubt that someone doom-scrolling tiktok is training their brain to be a hyper-learner, matrix-style. They're just superficially consuming highly stimulating dopamine spike content, and have a hard time engaging with anything that doesn't offer continual and intense reward (aka long-form content, real life).
It is akin to a drug dependence, but it's a drug dependence that's got some similarities with ADHD - specifically, it's a dopaminergic drug dependence, it strongly stimulates the reward center and appears to damage it, resulting in normal tasks offering insufficient reward to hold your attention. Executive function is driven in part by your brain assigning sufficient reward to tasks, and if your brain can't do that, regardless of the reason, you're going to have an attention disorder. Not 'ADHD', and I specified that in the comment you replied to, but 'ADHD-like' in that it's an issue with the reward system that makes executive function and regulation, task initiation and adherence and so on more difficult.
Like. I get all of the “correlation doesn’t equal causation”arguments in the comments here, but the complete denial that social media isn’t ruining our attention spans seems a bit disingenuous.
I do not have attention issues, but social media gets into my brain in a way that I have to actively stop myself at times, and I see it worse in others I’m close with.
SM is definitely exacerbating ADHD in those who have it, and, at the least, creating ADHD symptoms in those who would otherwise go undiagnosed.
Adhd doesnt equal short attention spans though, and id argue these symptoms dont present the same.
Saying social media causes ADHD is about on par with saying paracetemol causes Autism. Utter nonsense, and an insult to people that actually struggle with neurodivergence on a daily basis
Saying that, I'm sure the rise of social media and short form highly stimulating content doesn't help undiagnosed kids that have ADHD unknowingly
Is it tho? Its literally retraining the brain to act in a neurodivergent way. I think there is some evidence to modern society pushing some over the threshold into something like an ADHD diagnosis.
I don't think its pushing tons but it might be a finger on the scale because the overstimulation present and attention required changes things a bit.
Yes, it is a good analogy. ADHD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder, it is not something that can be acquired. Furthermore, because of the way it is named there is a lot of focus on the attention deficit aspect but actually the symptoms of ADHD are much more far ranging. Many of the symptoms that are most impactful are not attention related.
It's not even a question to me, I can see my own mental decline after smartphones became a thing. Once upon a time I could sit down and read half of a book, now I sometimes close reddit and reopen it instantly right after like it's normal.
[deleted]
This article has some awful science communication.
Yes, I acknowledge the study finds that on a societal level there's a general mild trend towards inattentive behaviour.
This is a world apart from clinical ADHD diagnosis, which is a deficit in executive function. In the UK, there's huge waiting lists for assessment, which is a big deal. It takes weeks to fill in the form and it's a grueling process.
For context, in the UK, the current heath minister did not like the previous government report when it came back saying the was a vast under diagnosis rate for ADHD and autism.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-investigation-of-the-nhs-in-england
They have launched a new report into what is driving mental health and support services (because we've underfunded these for at least 15 maybe 20 years and they're hanging by a thread).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-into-mental-health-conditions-adhd-and-autism-terms-of-reference
Basically we have zero confidence in the heath minister, Wes Streeting, after the botched Cas report where he consulted with anti trans groups and didn't take info account any lived experience of trans people. Or the wider Labour government, who have basically said that disabled and unemployed people cost too much and we need to get the benefit bills down.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://publications.aap.org/pediatricsopenscience/article/doi/10.1542/pedsos.2025-000922/205729/Digital-Media-Genetics-and-Risk-for-ADHD-Symptoms
From the linked article:
Using social media may impair children’s attention
Researchers have investigated a possible link between screen habits and ADHD-related symptoms in children.
Children who spend a significant amount of time on social media tend to experience a gradual decline in their ability to concentrate. This is according to a comprehensive study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Pediatrics Open Science, where researchers followed more than 8,000 children from around age 10 through age 14.
The use of screens and digital media has risen sharply in the past 15 years, coinciding with an increase in ADHD diagnoses in Sweden and elsewhere. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Oregon Health & Science University in the USA have now investigated a possible link between screen habits and ADHD-related symptoms.
The study followed 8,324 children aged 9–10 in the USA for four years, with the children reporting how much time they spent on social media, watching TV/videos and playing video games, and their parents assessing their levels of attention and hyperactivity/impulsiveness.
Social media stands out
Children who spent a significant amount of time on social media platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or Messenger, gradually developed inattention symptoms; there was no such association, however, for watching television or playing video games.
Kids with ADHD are more likely to get stuck doom scrolling on social media.
You can’t develop ADHD over time. It’s genetic.
It is genetic but I think that overuse of social media and crap like Tik. Tok can wire the brain to have similar symptoms to ADHD
The thing is, just because they are diagnosed doesn't mean they have it. Another study has shown that short form social media content, such as tik tok? Can cause a lot of ADHD esque symptoms, in neural typical people.
I'd be concerned about miss diagnosis.
ADHD is very real but how many people are getting diagnosed when they really just need to curb their addiction
Is it causal or corollary?
Video games actually helped me with my ADHD. It trained my brain to focus on a single task for longer periods of time to acquire a desired outcome. I'm not surprised that these short form videos have the opposite effect. They're basically training you to stare at your screen and receive dopamine, not actually work for anything.
I think there are people in the comments who are missing the point here. Screen usage is not causing ADHD, but screen usage has definitely "helped" identify children who have ADHD. Putting limits on social media and screen usage won't decrease how many people have ADHD and ironically the screen usage may have helped identify individuals who wouldn't have been identified otherwise.
Any talk about regulating social media or screen usage is irrelevant to how many people have ADHD and you'd figure in a time where we're much more aware of survivorship bias that especially in the science subreddit - people wouldn't be jumping to conclusions and drawing correlation with causation.
Or, idk, like any of these changes the last 15 years:*
Any of those could contribute to people feeling more comfortable in seeking treatment/diagnoses which would lead to an uptick in cases.
I'm sure that children who only consume short form video/social media content have a hard time paying attention. But I don't think that is due to a "chemical imbalance" like a lack of production of norepinephrine(which is commonly the reason those diagnosed with ADHD struggle) and more to do with the fact that they've trained themselves to only focus on quick bits of information.
Tv and video games dont have sub 60 second dopamine payoffs. It is in minutes if not hours. For example even something as simple a call of duty, match is 15 mins usually, that is when you get your dopamine of a win or a loss, which would in turn need another 15 to catch a win. Cartoon eps are 20 mins(after credits and opening). Tiktok/shorts are sub 3 minutes, usually under 90 seconds. That is a 10x difference between dopamine payoff in games(at least), and 13.(3)x with tv.
The social media vs TV/games split is the interesting part. That hints it's not “screen time” but feed design, notifications, variable rewards. Still, even with longitudinal data you’ve got self‑selection and reverse causality. Kids with emerging ADHD traits might just gravitate to fast, fragmented platforms.
Social media is designed to be addicting and to overstimulate your brain and overwhelm your senses. Video games are interactive, at least.
Ok but ADHD is a structural and chemical brain difference.
So are we finding that phone/ipad-use causes these differences to form in brains that were previously neurotypical?
Or is the study just picking up on kids with ADHD having more trouble with device-addiction/overuse, as a symptom of ADHD?
Or is this study just saying that the kids get a shorter attention span, and connecting it to ADHD because that is one of the symptoms? Because that's a huge oversimplification of what ADHD is. I have ADHD and I don't struggle with inattentiveness almost at all.
In the past 15 years identifying the spectrum of ADHD has increased so has ADHD increased in people or has the spectrum and it’s identification simply gotten better