Earlier social media use in pre-teens might lead to worse academic performance later in life, according to a new study published Monday in Nature. Based on a survey of more than 5,000 Italian teenagers, researchers from the University of Milano-Bicocca concluded that there is a correlation between how early a student opened a social media account and how much worse they performed academically four years later. The researchers began by picking a set of students statistically equal in their 5th-grade performance who were not on social media at the time. According to the findings, students who then opened a social media account in the 6th grade, aka when they were 11-12 years old, scored worse than later social media adopters in standardized maths and Italian exams that they took in the 10th grade, when they were 15-16 years old. The difference in grade results was roughly equivalent to 6 months of schooling, the researchers write. The grade impact was “smaller but still meaningful” when students opened a social media account in the 7th grade as well, and it became very little to non-significant when students joined social media in the 8th grade. The probability of repeating a grade was also higher for students who opened social media profiles in the 6th or 7th grade.