6 Minute English / Social media and teenage health

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil. Beth? What are you doing? Get off your phone!

Oh, sorry. And I m Beth.

Are you addicted to social media? It wouldn't be a surprise. With so many different apps out there, Snapchat, TikTok, and the latest, Threads, it's easy to spend a lot more time on your phone than ever before.

Yes. I don't think I'm addicted, but I definitely spend more time on social media than I would like to. However, there are plenty of studies out there looking at how social media affects mental health with some saying it can be as addictive as gambling.

Research in the US has found that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have double the risk of developing depression and anxiety. An adolescent is someone aged 10 to 19, between childhood and adulthood. With that in mind, it's no wonder parents are worried. To help with this, the US is currently in the process of regulating social media apps for teenagers. Some scientists think the UK should do the same.

There has been growing agreement among health experts about the negative, chronic health effects of social media use on teenagers. They have revealed in surveys that social media makes them feel worse about their body image, and 64% of teens have said they are regularly exposed to hate-based content. In this programme, we ll be discussing how social media affects teenagers, and, as usual, we ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you, Beth. The app Snapchat is a very common way that teenagers communicate these days. This is partly because messages and photos disappear after a certain time period. But, what percentage of 13 to 24-year-olds use Snapchat? Is it:

a) 70%b) 80% orc) 90%

I'll guess 80%.