Two hours pass or more on the smartphone screen and often they do not even notice it, convinced that they have shaken videos (useless) for 5 minutes at most. But the total loss of the conception of time is not the only sign of the connection to the bitter end.
Well 1 teen out of 5 spend more than two hours a day on Tiktokor even YouTube, and the effects range from Depression to anxiety to boredom to sadistic aggression.
This is what emerges from a recent study by the University Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and of the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), published in the magazine Nature, which reveals how proportional the time of use of social media is with theincreased probability of experimenting mental health problems.
Because Tiktok is dangerous more than other social networks
Based on statistical tests, Tiktok is the most popular network among young users around the world. Unlike Instagram or Facebook, encourages much more to passive video consumptionespecially due to a lower interaction between its users.
The study explored The relationship between the time spent on Tiktok, the consumption of content and the self -perception of digital well -being (that state of balance between time spent online and cognitive and emotional well -being). Given the scientific consensus on the greater impact of social media on girls, this study also tried to examine gender differences.
To this end, a transversal quantitative investigation with 737 Spanish teenagers aged between 12 and 18 years was conducted, which completed an online questionnaire with stairs and elements validated on the time of daily use, on the type of content consumption and on digital well -being. The results showed significant gender differences in the use and consumption of TikTok content: The girls spent more time on Tiktok And they engaged more with the contents of beauty and fashion, while the boys with video games and sporting content, suggesting that traditional genre roles are still present in their content consumption choices.
In addition, by teenagers, a rather positive autoperence of digital well -being on Tiktok has been observed, but unfortunately corresponding to one reduced ability to establish limits and limit the time spent shaking.
Specifically, according to numbers, more than half of the interviewees (over 53%) spend more than an hour a day on Tiktok, more than 35% exceed the hour and a half and more than 20% two hours. While, as for the perception of their digital well -beingon a scale from 1 to 5, evaluate their ability to limit their consumption time on average to 3.22; Their emotional resilience to the contents they looked at 3.31 and their ability to generate social connections and community at 3.64.
In addition, those who watch videos more than 2 hours a day evaluate their ability to establish limits to 2.93 out of 5, while those who are online less than an hour currency as 3.33.
Other studies had already confirmed that the obsessive use of social media leads to a low self -esteem related to the body image, to a negative perception of mental health and an increased risk of psychological discomfort.
So what do we look forward to giving our boys a stop? Are parental control or the much acclaimed digital “disconnection” enough? According to this study not exactly and more rigid measures how to prohibit Tiktok completely even are not enough: what you need would be to teach young social use of social media, while it would be urgent to make regular audits of the algorithms used by average to prevent their potential dependence effects.
