Social media affects half of kids negatively; 14% girls addicted

Seventeen percent of teenagers in the Netherlands think that they are addicted to social media. Almost half of the teens between the ages of 12 and 18 years indicate that social media has a negative effect on their concentration, sleep and school performance.

This is according to research done by Statistics Netherlands, the results of which was published on Friday.

Girls more often indicate that they are addicted to social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. than boys - 22 percent and 13 percent respectively. Girls also spend more time on social media - 14 percent indicated they spend 5 hours or longer every day, compared to 6 percent among boys. Most teenagers spend between 1 and 3 hours on social media a day.

47 percent of the young people indicated that social media has a negative impact on one or more parts of their lives, such as their ability to concentrate, their sleep patterns or their school performance. Girls experience more problems than boys.

Almost all of the teenagers indicated that they prefer seeing someone in person, rather than on social media. Half of them indicated that social media has a positive impact on their contact with family and friends.