One in seven teens use too much social media

One in seven Greek teenagers (13%) spend so much time on social media it has a negative impact on their state of mind, according to preliminary data gathered by the Research University Institute of Mental Health (EPIPSY) as part of a nationwide survey into behaviors related to the health of adolescent students.

The as-yet unpublished data for 2022 show that addiction to social media was significantly higher among girls (16%), compared to boys (9%) and among 13-year-olds (16%) and 15-year-olds (16%), compared to 11-year-olds (6%).

The study, conducted every four years by EPIPSY, attempts to answer whether intensive use of mobile phones and social media is linked to deteriorating mental health of adolescents, and to outline the profile of adolescent addiction to social media in Greece.

“Direct visual communication has been significantly limited between teenagers and has largely been replaced by a refracted visual communication with the interference of the mobile phone,” Anna Kokkevi, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Athens, told Kathimerini.

Kokkevi, who heads the team conducting the study, notes that addiction to mobile phones and social media decreases as teens get older, especially in high school. Specifically, 44% of first-year high schoolers said they used their phones and social media a lot, compared 39% for teens in the last year of high school.

The survey was conducted on approximately 6,250 students aged 11, 13 and 15.