Social media use may harm teens’ mental health by disrupting positive activities, study says

研究表明，社交媒体的使用可能会妨碍积极的活动，从而不利于青少年的心理健康

Social media use has been linked to depression, especially in teenage girls. But a new study argues that the issue may be more complex than experts think.

社交媒体的使用与抑郁症的患病相关，尤其对少女而言。但一项新的研究表明，问题可能比专家们想象的还要复杂。

The research, published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, involved interviews with almost 10,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 in England.

这项研究于本周二发表在《柳叶刀——儿童与青少年健康》杂志上。研究人员对英国近1万名年龄在13岁至16岁之间的儿童进行了调查。

The researchers found that social media may harm girls’ mental health by increasing their exposure to bullying and reducing their sleep and physical exercise.

研究人员发现，社交媒体可能会增加女孩受欺凌的概率、减少她们的睡眠和体育锻炼活动的时间，从而不利于她们的心理健康。

Our results suggest that social media itself doesn’t cause harm, but that frequent use may disrupt activities that have a positive impact on mental health such as sleeping and exercising, while increasing exposure of young people to harmful content, particularly the negative experience of cyber-bullying, study co-author Russell Viner of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health said in a statement.

该研究的共同作者、伦敦大奥蒙德街儿童健康学院的卢瑟尔·威纳在一份声明中表示，我们的研究结果表明，社交媒体本身不会造成伤害，但频繁使用可能会扰乱正常生活，特别是对心理健康有积极影响的睡眠和锻炼，同时也会让未成年人接触到诸如网络暴力之类的有害内容。

In other words: Social media itself might not be to blame for the mental health issues; rather, it takes away from the girls’ sleep quality and exercise while exposing users to cyberbullying, and that’s what leads to lower well-being and problems with mental health.

换言之：社交媒体本身可能不是造成心理健康问题的原因;但是，它夺走了女孩的睡眠质量和锻炼活动，同时让孩子们暴露在网络欺凌之下，而这正是导致幸福感下降和心理健康问题的原因。

(全文共200个词，时代周刊)

重难点词汇：

disrupt vt. 破坏;使瓦解;使分裂;使中断;使陷于混乱 adj. 分裂的，中断的;分散的

bully n. 欺凌弱小者;土霸 vt. 欺负;威吓 vi. 欺侮人