Teens who frequently check social media may experience brain development changes, study warns

‘Children who grow up checking social media are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from peers’

Frequent habitual checking of social media by adolescents is linked to brain development changes as they grow, a new study warned.

The research, published on Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics, found that adolescents’ brains may become more sensitive when anticipating social rewards and punishments over time with frequent and increased social media usage.

“The findings suggest that children who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,” study co-author Eva Telzer from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill said in a statement.