LISTEN: New research from the University of Georgia links underdeveloped vocabulary skills to early childhood social media use. GPB's Chase McGee has more.

Two teens hold phones with social media apps on-screen.

FILE - Young people use their phones to view social media in Sydney, Nov. 8, 2024.

Credit: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File

New research from the University of Georgia links underdeveloped vocabulary skills to early childhood social media use.

Results from a nationwide survey of more than ten thousand young people suggests that frequent social media use starting around age ten can stunt vocabulary growth.

Cory Carvahlo is a UGA postdoctoral fellow and the lead author of the study, he says social media use takes up time that kids would otherwise add to their existing knowledge of the world, known as crystalized ability.

"Adolescents add between 2,000 and 3,000 new words a year across the teen years, so that's an explosion in vocabulary in those years," he said. "What we found was that faster growth in social media was related to slower growth in these crystallized abilities."

That slowed growth doesn’t just mean they’ll have a hard time reading. 

Carvahlo says it can hurt a person’s ability to name a complicated feeling they’re experiencing, or to communicate complex ideas.

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