A new study shows that children's use of social media may increase the risk of depression during adolescence. After years of controversy over the relationship between mental health and the use of platforms such as "Tek Tok" and "Instagram", the study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of California in San Francisco found that the frequent use of children of these platforms may actually contribute to the exacerbation of their depression symptoms.

The results of the study showed that children who suffered from symptoms of depression at the age of 9 or 10 were not more used for communication sites when they reaches 13 years compared to others, which weakens the previous hypothesis, saying that children “non -happy” are more attracted to these platforms.

But the surprise was that children who used social media sites extensively at the age of 12 and 13 years, who showed the highest rates of depression later, indicating the possibility of a causal relationship between heavy use and the emergence of symptoms of depression.

According to the study, the average daily time that children spend on communication sites increased from only 7 minutes at the age of nine to more than an hour as they reach early teenage. The research team suggested that the reasons for this negative effect are related to factors such as electronic bullying and lack of sleep, which were previously associated with an increase in depression rates among adolescents.