Kids Connecting on Social Media Are Less Satisfied With Life

Children who chat on social media suffer the consequences, according to Bloomberg. Kids who spend more time chatting on social websites feel reduced satisfaction about all parts of their lives except for their friendships, research from the British Institute of Labor Economics shows.

Looking at a national sample of British children between the ages of 10 and 15 collected from 2010 to 2014, the researchers found that spending one hour a day chatting on social networks reduced the probability of a kid being completely satisfied with his or her life overall by about 14 percentage points.

Children might have been exposed to cyber bullying, had less time left over to do other things that would have improved their well-being, or may have made comparisons about their lives against others, the researchers suggest. Childhood experiences are important in shaping how they'll succeed as adults, the authors say, so it makes sense to pay attention to something that's putting a dent in the early happiness of future workers.