Thanks to her ongoing collabortion with the news outlet The Conversation España, Lucía Vaquero was invited to write another article for this platform. In this ocasion, the focus of the text was in close relationship with the SMART project.
Image by Antoni Shkraba (obtained at pexels.com)
This article, entitled ‘Do we know how new technologies affect minor’s brains? It is not so easy to ascertain it‘ (published in Spanish), covers a brief summary of findings regarding the effects of new technologies and social media on children’s and adolescents’ brains, to then discuss the difficulties of scientifically studying said effects. Due to ethical concerns, such as privacy maintenance and protection of minors, it is really difficult to investigate the actual activities that are performed by children and teenagers online or while on social media. Even “only” tracking the amount of hours of use of smarpthones and other devices raise ethical questions about privacy or how to manage or communicate unexpected findings to guardians, teachers and caregivers.
At the same time, more studies and new methodological approaches are needed to fully and properly understand the beneficial or detrimental effects of smartphones, internet and social media usage, especially on developing brains.
Social Media Artistic tRaining in Teenagers (SMART) 