Executive Summary
- •A study of over 5,000 Italian teenagers published in Nature linked 6th-grade social media adoption to lower 10th-grade test scores.
- •Standardized math and Italian exam scores dropped by an equivalent of roughly 6 months of schooling for early account creators.
- •Students joining social media in 8th grade showed negligible academic decline compared to those who joined in 6th or 7th grade.
Community Sentiment
Key Developments & Data
New study links early social media account creation to lower high school grades years later.
Researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca tracked over 5,000 Italian teenagers from 5th through 10th grade for the study published in Nature.
Students who opened profiles in 6th grade performed worse on 10th-grade standardized math and Italian exams by an equivalent of 6 months of schooling.
The drop in performance was smaller for 7th-grade adopters, while joining in 8th grade showed very little to non-significant academic impact.
And the negative impact didn't apply to English exams, which researchers attributed to informal language practice online.
"Students who created a personal social media account in 6th or 7th grade consistently exhibit poorer outcomes across nearly every school-related dimension available in our dataset." — University of Milano-Bicocca Researchers
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