If TikTok is under the spotlight on the issue of the management of personal data, the Chinese social network also raises the question of the mental health of its users. The use of this social network would be 1h30 to 1h45 per day and per user. That is more than 10 hours per week for 14-18 year olds. A time to add to that spent on other applications.
Professor of psychology Grégoire Borst, researcher at the CNRS, gave his point of view on this question this week before the Senate inquiry committee. Would the parents who are also the senators finally hear the scientific proof of the impact of the use of TikTok on the behavior of their teenagers?
“Scientific declarations on TikTok, ultimately, there are none or very very few, warned the professor from the outset. There is very little data on what this does to the developing brain and cognitive skills. “And to try however, beyond TikTok, to evoke the influence of social networks on teenagers.
Surprising results on well-being
“The adolescent brain is very focused on rewards. His limbic system [partie du cerveau intervenant dans le comportement et en particulier les émotions] responds strongly to an expected reward. And that explains why teenagers are geared so much towards repetitive behaviors for rewards. In fact, repeating video game play leads to rapid performance improvement.
“When they are in a social context, adds Grégoire Borst, they are even more oriented towards immediate rewards, towards immediate pleasure compared to the ability to postpone their pleasure in the long term. »
Two studies carried out on 500,000 data from adolescents, and focused on the time spent on social networks and their well-being, come to the same conclusion. 0.4% of adolescent well-being is explained by time spent on social media. But one study concludes there is no public health emergency, the other that there is.
Surprise in the room.
Individual factors
Another fact stated by Grégoire Borst, “between 1990 and 2017, there is no explosion of psychological difficulties encountered by adolescents due to the emergence of more digital technology in their daily lives. “Above all, we must not look at” adolescents as a homogeneous population “. Still, these social networks are “amplifiers of pre-existing psychological difficulties in adolescents. »
“If you have good self-esteem and you go to a social network, and you enter a situation of social comparison, it will rather have a positive effect on your self-esteem. If your self-esteem is negative, bad, this comparison on a social network will lead to a decrease in your self-esteem. »
“You explain to us that it is not the fact of going on social networks that will make a kid more or less able to learn, continues the President of the commission Mickaël Vallet. This is already the way it is structured. But once kids are on TikTok, regardless of their ability to resist, can you tell us what makes it possible, believing you spend five minutes there, to spend three hours there. And does spending three hours there really matter? »
And if your children went to school later?
“The data is even less convincing on this point of view, says the professor of psychology. I understand that there is a legitimate fear on this point. However, there is no proven, systematic, negative link with the cognitive development of children beyond 3-4 years. »
The time spent in front of screens “has an effect on the quality of sleep of adolescents and adults. Except that adolescence is a period in which we have a convergence of issues. They are much more sleep deprived than at any other time in life. Their sleep cycle is shifting by more than two hours. “And to advocate the shift of two hours from the first hour of classes in college. “It’s miraculous. You will finally respect the physiological time of the adolescent. Because, anyway, he goes to bed at 11:00 p.m. »
For younger children, also says Grégoire Borst, “there is consistent data, which seems to suggest that there are not disorders but delays in the acquisition of language, of the recognition of emotions, sometimes in fine motor skills. These are not delays which are irretrievable but which are explained by the time spent in moments when in particular we should be as human beings in construction, in interaction with our parents. »