Reacción a "Most young Australians intended to continue using social media, even if the ban came into force"

Is the study of good quality? Are the conclusions supported by sound data?

“The study is methodologically very simple. In the first part, the study examines Australian adolescents shortly before the ban on social media use by under-16s came into force:

• a) A very weak or negligible association between having a social media account and a higher score on a standardised anxiety scale, and between having a social media account or having ever used social media and the score on a depression scale.
• b) A weak relationship between having ever used social media and anxiety scores, and between an earlier age of onset and higher scores on both depression and anxiety scales.

The assessment of these effects as weak or very weak is based on standard criteria for the social sciences, although these remain arbitrary thresholds. More important is the assessment of these effects in terms of clinical relevance. None of the regression coefficients is of sufficient magnitude to be considered a clinically significant effect.

Furthermore, the link describing further methodological details is not yet operational, so I have been unable to carry out a careful assessment of all of them. Based on the article’s description, these analyses share the same interpretative limitations as similar studies. Firstly, they are based exclusively on self-report measures and, secondly, the age of onset of use is assessed retrospectively, which implies possible recall bias or reliability issues.

No information is provided regarding the possible control for confounding variables, although such information may be available in the supplementary material, which is not accessible.

The second part assesses the intention to continue using social media following the ban, and it is noted that the majority of adolescents surveyed intended to continue using them. Once again, this appears to be a rather simple analysis, with two significant limitations. Firstly, intention is not a direct measure of actual subsequent behaviour; and secondly, based on the available information, the sample is not representative, meaning that the observed percentages of intention cannot be extrapolated to the entire adolescent population.”

How does this study fit in with the existing evidence?

“The first part is perfectly consistent with the finding that social media usage variables correlate very weakly with indicators of mental health. Previous meta-analyses and systematic reviews have observed, beyond the data from this specific study, that these correlations:

• a) are all the weaker the greater the methodological and statistical rigour of the study,
• b) are partially explained by third variables.”

What are the implications for the real world?

“The implications are very limited. The discussion is particularly weak in this regard, as it completely ignores the inherent limitations of this type of study and overlooks the necessary discussion regarding the size and relevance of the reported effects. The assertion that ‘Overall, these findings agree that early adolescence is a period of vulnerability to the adverse effects of social media on mental health, and support the argument in favour of delaying adolescents’ access to these platforms’ is not at all supported by the results.

The finding that a significant proportion of adolescents have no intention of complying with the restrictions on social media use laid down by law is interesting, and some analyses had already predicted this as one of the major weaknesses of this type of blanket ban. The provisional data available now that the law is in force point in the same direction, namely that the ban has not been successful—or at least not to the extent expected by its proponents—in its aim of substantially reducing social media use by adolescents.”