Teen Anxiety Spikes as Digital Habits Take Over, Experts Warn

United States: A recent expert report suggested a link between the social anxiety of teenagers and their preferences for digital connections instead of personal or face-to-face meetings.

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The research tracks how emotional communication through digital media makes teenagers show specific brain “over-control” patterns, as shown by a novel neurophysiological marker called delta-beta coupling.

During adolescence, people pass through essential stages of mental growth but also face a peak time where mental health problems such as anxiety become more likely.

Social anxiety, which grows from fear of negative evaluation at school or with friends, damages teens’ self-esteem as well as their relationships and creates long-lasting mental health problems, psypost.org reported.

Almost all teens use digital media every day, yet scientists still cannot define its effects on mental health.

What have previous studies suggested?

Almost all teens use digital media every day, yet scientists still cannot define its effects on mental health.

Earlier research delivered conflicting results when it comes to digital media effects on anxiety because separate studies either linked digital media to anxiety or found no connection at all.

Research mostly tracked the amount of time teens used digital media instead of examining their screen time compared to physical interactions.

Scientists investigated whether social anxiety development between media habits could be explained by how preference for digital preferences combines with brain responses.

According to study author Sarah Myruski, an assistant research professor at Pennsylvania State University and associate director of the Emotion Development Laboratory, “Digital media use is incredibly common among adolescents. Psychologists, parents, and adolescents themselves have widely expressed concern regarding how digital media relates to adolescent well-being,” psypost.org reported.

“Of particular interest for our research team, digital media use has been associated with elevated anxiety, symptoms which commonly emerge within adolescents, with 1 in 3 teens reaching distressing and impairing levels of anxiety by age 18. Socially anxious teens may be particularly vulnerable to potential risks of online behavior, as they are more likely to be uncomfortable in in-person social interactions and instead opt to socialize using digital media,” she added.

Furthermore, “Beyond considering sheer frequency (e.g., hours per week), my work examines how some teens prefer to use digital media to communicate with others, as opposed to face-to-face interactions, and how this digital media preference relates to anxiety and well-being. Difficulties with emotion regulation may underlie why reliance on digital media predicts higher anxiety symptoms for some teens,” she continued.

How was the study conducted?

The scientific analysis involved 80 teenage participants who took part in one laboratory session at ages 13 to 16.

All participants answered surveys about their personal communication choices and reactions to social anxiety.

The researchers recorded their brain activity using EEG to measure how well emotion systems connect with a system that controls emotions.

The measurement of delta-beta coupling helps researchers understand how emotional brain systems connect and communicate with brain areas that control thinking processes.

When emotional regulation goes wrong, and identification with anxiety occurs, brain regions can show an excessive connection.

This analysis discovered that teens who rely on digital tools to express emotions tie together brain regions that handle emotional reactions and regulation better than peers who do not use digital channels for this purpose.