SAN DIEGO – Teens are going through a mental health crisis. The United States Surgeon General’s advisory, issued in May 2023, indicates that the use of social media may be contributing to the problem.
Medical authorities are alarmed by the potential risks of social media use and the mental health of adolescents.
According to the Pew Research Center, almost all teens say they are connected to their devices every day, and half say they go online constantly.
This behavior matches another alarming figure – Nearly 3 in 5 girls report feeling so sad or depressed that they cannot participate in their daily activities.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this is the highest percentage of teens with these feelings in more than a decade.
“The time that is on your phone looking down is time that you are not outside, that you are not exercising, that you are not interacting with friends or friends, that you are not going to the movies and all those things are accumulating,” he says. , Alexandra Canetti, Psychiatrist.
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Alexandra Canetti says that some young people spend between 6 and 8 hours a day in front of screens, and most of this time is on social media.
But there is good news, the American Psychological Association, says that adolescents who reduce their use of social networks by 50% report feeling better about their weight and physical appearance.
Her recommendation: Making a schedule to use the apps can help create healthy habits.
“Both iOS and Android offer several options for parental control, so if you don’t want your teen to use an app at certain times, you can change the settings to disable the app at those times,” says Elmer Guardado, Spokesperson. from Consumer Reports.
Another option – program your router so that WiFi turns off automatically. Do the following: Find the address bar on your router and access the administrative controls. There, you can make a schedule for the WiFi. Remember, you can apply this schedule to all the devices in your house or select a few.
Dr. Canetti says it’s important to have a conversation with your teens about the decisions they’re making.
Parents can also set up device-free zones in certain rooms of their home or even during specific hours. Put those devices down when you’re on vacation, too, and remember that modeling the kind of behavior you expect to see in your children is very important.
