Study: Social Media Use Associated with ADHD

Simian Practicalist
4 hours ago
2 min read

A study by S. Nivins et al titled “Digital Media, Genetics, and Risk for ADHD Symptoms in Children: A Longitudinal Study” published on 16 January 2026 finds that ADHD-related symptoms are associated with social media and increase over time.

The paper is 10 pages with the main text about 8 pages. The remaining are references.

The study involved 8,324 children in the US aged 9 to 10 years born between 2005 and 2009. The participants were enrolled between 2016 and 2018, and the study ran for 4 years “with follow-up rates exceeding 85% through the third year and 43% at year 4”. Only one child per family was included.

The cohort had 4,408 (53%) male and 3,916 (47%) female, with 52.3% white, 16.3% black, 6.0% Asian, those being the top three groups.

The survey asked about “typical” hours of digital media (DM) excluding school-related work which were grouped into three broad categories: social media, video games, and videos/television/movies.

Saliva samples were collected and genotyping was conducted. Covariates such as socioeconomic status were considered.

Over the 4 years, on average, use of social media and video games at least doubled whereas videos/television/movies remained constant.

Not surprisingly,

“[a]verage social media use was positively associated with an increase in inattention symptoms (β [SE], 0.15 [0.03]; P < .001) over the study period”.

The increase was linear over time. Also,

[a]lthough the effect size [0.15] is small at an individual level, it could have significant consequences if behavior changes across population level.

Interestingly, neither playing video games nor watching videos/television/movies had such associations. The researchers speculate that video games require attention whereas social media is disruptive.

The study has its limitations. The data was self-reported and the time of day was not considered for activities, just average hours per day. But the study excluded those born extremely pre-term (<28 weeks) or with neurological problems, so these children are normal.

Even though it is highly generalized, it is a decent sample size over 4 years and clearly shows that the problem gets worse over time.