New USF study will track social, digital media use in children over more than two decades

TAMPA, Fla. - Researchers in the Tampa Bay area are studying how digital and social media shape people from childhood to adulthood.

A new study by the University of South Florida will survey thousands of kids between the ages of 11 and 13 over the course of 25 years. The study will gather data every six months through 2050 to study the impact of smartphones, social media and other digital media.

"How digital media use in childhood is linked to health and wellness outcomes in adulthood," said Justin Martin, the lead researcher and an associate professor at USF.

READ: Half of US teens spend over 4 hours daily on screens, CDC study finds

Martin said a long-term study like this hasn’t been done before. He said a lot of previous studies have looked at children between the ages of 13 and 17.            

"This study is really overdue," he said. "We should’ve been conducting this study 10 or 12 years ago."

Martin said this study will dig deeper than previous studies.

"Prior research has mostly studied social media use, smartphone use and time with smartphones and gaming," he said. "And we measure all of those things. But we’re also measuring binge-watching and podcast streaming and music streaming and news and information consumption."

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USF said the survey will look at social media use and how it relates to addiction, cyberbullying, news consumption, streaming services, parental controls, media literacy and artificial intelligence. USF said researchers will study children starting from 11 to 13 years old, because about half of 11-year-olds in the U.S. don’t own a smartphone yet.

"This is pretty monumental," Dr. Wendy Rice, a licensed psychologist, said.

Rice, who works with children and families, does point out that a lot of children use iPads as early as one or two years old. She said there are a lot of benefits that come with digital and social media.

"We learn a lot," she said. "We can keep up with friends. It's another way to communicate."

However, she said there are also a lot of negative impacts that she sees digital and social media have on children and young adults.

READ: Can video games improve your sleep? Here's what the research shows

"They are doing so much comparison," Rice said. "Comparing themselves to others, wanting to measure up, feeling left out. And, while they can feel connected, oftentimes, they walk away feeling more lonely and disconnected."

With this study, Martin said they hope to learn the long-term effects by following the same participants for 25 years.

"In childhood, social media use, heavy use of smartphones, video gaming can be associated with adverse health outcomes, from depression, anxiety, to sleep deprivation," Martin said.

He hopes the study can adapt with the ever-changing world of media.

"We’re trying to craft questions that we ask children now to still be valid in 20 years," he said.

Researchers are doing a pilot survey this month with 1,500 children ages 11-13 in Florida. The long-term survey will study up to 9,000 children around the U.S.

USF said researchers will survey the children twice a year – once during the school year and once in the summer. Martin said they’ll publish data from the study every year, and he hopes they can eventually put the data online in an interactive format that can filter the data by different demographics.

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