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How social media affects teen mental health: a missing link

Researchers investigating the impacts of social media on mental health must consider where exactly adolescents are in their cognitive and social development.
  1. Amy Orben

    1. Amy Orben is a programme leader track scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.

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  2. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

    1. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK.

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Depression, anxiety and suicidality have all sharply increased in adolescents over the past decade1. So, too, has the amount of time that young people spend online (see ‘Troubling trends’). Partly because of fears that there’s a link between these trends, governments around the world are under pressure to do more to regulate technology companies.

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Nature 614, 410-412 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00402-9

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Competing Interests

A.O. is an unpaid member of governmental and non-governmental organizations (including the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and The British Academy). She has also provided unpaid and paid talks and consultancy work to organizations that will not gain or lose financially from this publication. S.-J.B. currently receives funding from Wellcome, the MRC, the Jacobs Foundation, the Wellspring Foundation and the University of Cambridge. In the past five years, S.-J.B. engaged in a paid consultancy with Cognita International Schools Group and has provided paid expert witness work for UK charities, legal organisations in the UK and USA and the UK government. S.-J.B. is the author of two books related to the brain, education and learning, for which she received an advance and royalties. S.-J.B. gives talks in schools, in the state and private sector, as well as at education conferences and for education organizations, and other public, private and third sector organizations (some talks are remunerated). S.-J.B. is a member of the Rethinking Assessment group, the Steering Committee of the Cambridge Centre of Science Policy, the Technical Advisory Group for the UK Government Department of Education 'Education and Outcomes Panel-C Study' and the Singapore Government National Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. She was a member of the Times Education Commission in 2021-22.

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