If you’ve ever watched a child disappear into a world of scrolling—the quick flips through videos, the likes, the comments, the next shiny thing—you’re not alone. But according to new research out of Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, all that swiping might come with a hidden cost: attention.
The team at Karolinska followed more than 8,000 children over time, tracking how different types of screen use affected their ability to concentrate. What they found was surprisingly specific. It wasn’t screen time in general that was the issue—it was social media.
Kids who spent more time on apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok were more likely to struggle with focus as they grew older. In contrast, time spent gaming or watching TV didn’t seem to have the same effect.
Video games and television, despite often being blamed for “rotting brains,” tend to require attention in a different way. Games demand quick reactions and strategy. TV shows or movies pull us into a storyline that unfolds over minutes or hours. Both invite a type of sustained engagement.
Social media, on the other hand, is designed for constant interruption. Notifications, likes, and endlessly changing content keep the brain in a state of alert anticipation. It’s a feast of novelty—great for grabbing attention, terrible for maintaining it.
Professor Torkel Klingberg, the cognitive neuroscientist leading the research, cautions against shrugging off the findings. Each child might experience only a small drop in concentration, he says, but across a generation, those small changes could add up to something significant.
He even estimated that adding just one extra hour of social media per day could, in theory, result in a 30 percent increase in ADHD diagnoses—simply because kids already inclined to distraction might be pushed over the diagnostic edge by the constant mental strain.
In other words, what feels like harmless scrolling could quietly be shaping the way young minds focus and learn.
The researchers aren’t calling for a digital detox or a return to flip phones. They acknowledge that social apps are woven into the fabric of modern childhood. Still, the data suggests we may need to rethink how these platforms are designed—and how we use them.
Encouraging kids to balance their time online with more focused activities—whether that’s gaming, watching a show from start to finish, or even spending time outside—could make a real difference.
Because while social media connects us in powerful ways, it might also be training a whole generation to find focus harder to hold onto.
Source: SVT.se
Other possible headlines: