Is Your Child Addicted to Social Media? See Why You Must Curb That Addiction Now

If your child is addicted to social media, it may be time to nip that in the bud as a recent study found that children who are always glued to social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, are TWICE as likely to suffer mental health issues.

According to the report filed by the Office for National Statistics, higher levels of emotional problems, hyperactivity and poor behaviour were discovered in children who spend more than three hours per day on social media.

The research found that on a typical school day, 8 per cent of children, especially girls, spent over three hours on social networking websites. Children who spent more than three hours on social websites on a normal school day reported ‘significantly higher total difficulties scores’ that suggest mental health problems than those who did not use social websites at all or spent less time using them.

While social media use cannot be isolated from the typical modern day child, especially preteens and teens, as they may ‘provide an additional way to connect with others and form relationships,’ parents must commit to curbing their children’s addictive tendencies as social media use ‘could also be a source of social comparison, cyber bullying and isolation, reducing children’s mental health.’