That’s only half the story…
In the UK there is a significant rise in teen suicides, anxiety and depression. The mental health of young people is a major concern. Many celebrities are becoming involved, turning their attention to helping young people. The UK Millennium Cohort Study1 involved more than 10,000 teenagers who are 14 years old.
This particular study is unique because it was not only looking at the possibility that social media use could lead to depression but also investigated online harassment, sleep, self-esteem and body image as potential pathways to depressive symptoms. The findings were radical and echo the results of similar studies conducted.
They connect social media use with depressive symptoms in young people and require guidelines for the safe use of social media.
What were some of the key findings?
The longer young people spend on social media, the higher the risk of suffering with depressive symptoms.
Girls spend more time on social media than boys do.
Girls with greater social media use at the start of adolescence can have poorer mental wellbeing several years later.
Girls using social media for more than five hours a day reported:
- Fewer hours of sleep
- Disrupted sleep
- Online harassment as either a victim or a perpetrator
- Low self-esteem
- Dissatisfaction with their self-image
There’s more to the story
We are pioneering parenting in the digital age, and while this study highlights the social/emotional/digital addiction impacts of social media and excessive screen time, there is more we need to know.
Social media has benefitted us by making the world a smaller place. It closes the distance gap between families and friends living too far apart to visit each other. It provides companies with a global customer base merely with the click of a button. We all surf the information superhighway without a thought for the vehicles we use or the road we travel. All wireless technology was brought to market with no safety testing, and the peer-reviewed published scientific literature now shows it is biologically harmful.
In November, the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s $30M study2 determined:
- “clear evidence” of heart tumours
- Evidence of brain tumours
- Evidence of DNA damage
Another major 2018 study3 at Italy’s Ramazzini Institute reported similar findings.
This low-level, non-ionising microwave radiation pulsing from the wireless antennas is linked in other studies to insomnia, anger, depression, behaviour issues, cognitive impairment, suicidal ideation and more.
Children, the science shows, are especially vulnerable. Each device has multiple antennas (think cellular, data, Bluetooth, WI-FI, hotspot, etc.) and without us realising it, they are all on all the time, constantly pulsing microwave radiation for a handshake with the nearest cell tower or router. The risks for tumours increase after 30 minutes of daily use of a mobile phone against the head4.
The good news is that once we know to turn off the wireless and choose the much faster, safer and more reliable hard-wired connections, many of these symptoms of microwave sickness reduce or disappear altogether.
Come up to speed quickly
Please consider taking the Schools & Families Course and/or the Corporate Induction Safety Awareness Course at our non-profit Wireless Education. We’ll bring you quickly up to speed on the science, risks, how other countries are protecting their citizens, and medically recommended best practices for safer technology use. Each course can be completed in about a half hour, and will give you the information you need to navigate safe technology in the digital age.
Some families are having all older children and parents take the course so they can level-set with the facts. They can start the conversation to decide what steps they might take first at home, then start the conversation with their schools and perhaps at work too. We’ve priced the courses very low to help as many as we can while covering our overhead costs. The Schools & Families Course is less than the cost of a movie ticket, and the Corporate Induction Safety Awareness Course is a drop in the bucket for corporate training. We hope you’ll let us help you come up to speed quickly on safe technology best practices!
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(18)30060-9/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR0OFLY6eTrcwxaRCxyBbEIB0IndAskyEBraN8SHo460Gz0UMoKYxda4-sE
- https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/results/areas/cellphones/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935118300367?via%3Dihub
- http://phonehealth.org/cerenat-study, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928468014000649, http://interphone.iarc.fr/
https://www.wirelesseducation.org/uk-study-connects-social-media-use-and-depression/
