Teenagers with mental-health conditions spend more time on social media than their peers ' on average, 50 more minutes on a typical day. They are also more likely to be dissatisfied with aspects of the experience, such as their number of online friends, a survey of 3,340 adolescents in the United Kingdom has revealed. The study, published today in Nature Human Behaviour1, explores how teens with specific mental-health conditions use social media, finding that participants with disorders such as anxiety and depression are more vulnerable to negative online experiences than are those with conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 'That is a question that very few studies have addressed, especially on such a large sample,' says study co-author Luisa Fassi, a specialist in young people's mental health and social-media use at the University of Cambridge, UK. The results are 'a good warning to families that if your youth is vulnerable because of anxiety, a...
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