By India McCarty
Experts warn parents against the damage social media can do to young people’s brains, from affecting memory to creating anxiety issues.
“One large study of preteens found that those who spent more time on platforms had lower scores on reading and memory tasks, a pattern that held even after accounting for other factors in their lives,” Morning Overview reported.
The outlet added that these findings were “serious enough to be framed as a warning about how early exposure to feeds can blunt core academic skills in kids who are still in elementary and middle school, as reported in detailed coverage of lower reading and memory scores.”
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These findings correlate with another study published by JAMA, which reported that preteens who regularly use social media perform “poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared with those who use no or little social media,” per NPR.
“It confirms a lot of what we have been hearing about from schools all across the country, which is that kids are just having a really hard time focusing on being able to learn as well as they used to, because of the ways in which social media has changed their ability to process information, perhaps,” psychologist Mitch Prinstein at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told NPR.
Social media can also negatively impact teens’ mental health, especially when it comes to anxiety. Morning Overview noted that regular social media “repeatedly triggers…reward circuits” in the brain, which can “heighten sensitivity to feedback and rejection, making some teens more anxious and more reactive to the constant stream of peer comparison.”
In a 2025 survey conducted by Blue Shield of California and Children Now, researchers found that around one in three California teens surveyed said social media was “harmful to their mental health…and about seven in 10 said that social media contributed to a negative body image.”
“Companies are preying on our young people for profit,” Lishaun Francis, director of behavioral health at Children Now, said. “There is an algorithm that knows exactly how old your child is and targets them with content that makes them feel bad about themselves.”
These studies confirm what many have already realized: early exposure to social media has detrimental effects on children. Parents should be vigilant about their teens’ social media use and try their best to keep them from these platforms while they’re still young.
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