https://youtu.be/QwTt_GDE48M
As most people know by now, social media is the gosh-darned devil. But did you know that it might also be ruining the lives of young people? That’s the kind of grim reality a new study from the *deep breath* Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data & Methods is delivering, as a surprising number of Welsh students (ages 12-15) revealed that they not only can’t stop messing around on Facebook and Twitter, but they’re waking up in the middle of the night just to see if they have any notifications. Even worse, while 23 percent admitted that they’re “almost always” waking up to check their accounts, as many as 28 percent of the teens aren’t even going to sleep until “midnight or later.” Whatever happened to the good old days of doing your homework and going to sleep so your mom and dad could do their taxes in their locked bedroom?
Meanwhile, nearly 40 percent of the 14- and 15-year-old students complained that they’re “almost always” tired when they get to school in the morning. The obvious concern stemming from all of this is that being this dependent on social media, as well as increasingly fatigued from lack of sleep, will lead to an increase in depression among teens, because that is, after all, the age at which kids are most likely to experience an emo phase. The researchers concluded that the best possible solution might be a “regular morning routine” that will help the teens focus on their schoolwork more. However, as is almost always the case, this might simply be solved by more parents creating social media accounts of their own.
For more on what’s destroying the youth of the world this week, anchors Tom Storey and Briana Lane weigh in on today’s episode of The Desk.