Do teenagers who frequent Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites perform worse academically? Scientists from Germany have looked into these worries.

“Concerns regarding the allegedly disastrous consequences of social networking sites on school performance are unfounded,” says Professor Markus Appel, a psychologist who holds the Chair of Media Communication at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany.

Markus Appel, PhD student Caroline Marker (JMU) and Timo Gnambs from the University of Bamberg have taken a closer look at how the social media use of adolescents correlates with their school grades. “There are several contradictory single studies on this subject and this has made it difficult previously to properly assess all results,” Marker says. Some studies report negative impacts of Snapchat & Co., others describe a positive influence and again others do not find any relationship at all.

To resolve this, the researchers conducted so-called meta-analyses: From relevant databases of scientific publications, they identified 59 studies that tackled the correlation between social media use and academic performance. Next, they analysed the results of these studies which comprised almost 30,000 young people worldwide.

– Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, JMU

Read more: Is Social Media to Blame for Poor Grades?

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