Technology

But wait, there's more:

Using regression analysis, we found that, globally, the age of access to social media accounts for approximately 40% of the overall association between age of smartphone ownership and mind health. Other significant contributing factors include poor family relationships (13%), cyberbullying (10%), and disrupted sleep (12%). Notably, 68% of the negative impacts associated with poor family relationships and 63% of the negative impacts associated with cyberbullying are downstream of age of first social media account. This suggests that having access to AI-powered social media environments at a younger age puts individuals at greater risk for poorer family relationships and exposure to cyberbullying. In contrast, only 19% of the effects of disrupted sleep can be explained by age of access to social media. This suggests that sleep disruptions arising from smartphone ownership at a younger age arise from smartphone activity other than social media (e.g. watching movies, gaming).