Last week, TikTok reached a settlement just before it was to be involved in a lawsuit that claims it and other social media platforms are making children addicted to the platforms and their phones.
Ashley Lucas is a therapist at LewisGale Medical Center and spoke with 10 News about the effects social media/phone addiction can have.
Lucas said that social media can have an effect on a lot of things, such as a student’s sleep patterns or their self-esteem. This is alongside mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
One of the big takeaways from takeaways is that social media addiction is also starting to replace genuine face-to-face interaction between people, affecting someone’s ability to create real relationships.
“It replaces the time spent doing hobbies that are beneficial to mental health and also just time spent determining when difficult things come up, how do I cope with them, and things of that nature,” Lucas said.
Meanwhile, Nancy Hans, the Executive Director of the Partnership of Community Wellness, said that the dopamine rush that comes from these types of social media platforms can create something akin to a rabbit hole of content as users continue to scroll through heaps of content.
Some social media apps do have parental controls, but many kids usually find ways around them.
Hans also said that she has heard from both parents and grandparents who have told them that social media addiction is starting to affect their kids and grandparents in the classroom.
“What we’re seeing and hearing is that there are kids coming to school and they may know how to use this finger to scroll,” Hans said. “They don’t know how to use a pencil. They’re not holding it correctly. And that is clearly, clearly very concerning because we feel that there’s going to be development delays.”
The Partnership for Community Wellness is also having community conversations about social media at local schools. The next one is on February 10th at W.E. Cundiff Elementary School at 6:00 PM.