It has been proposed that teenagers aged 10 to 15 years be restricted

Question

It has been proposed that teenagers aged 10 to 15 years be restricted to less than 2 hours per day engaging with social media. Would a significant number of teens aged 10 to 15 years get an overall developmental or health benefit from such a restriction?

﻿﻿﻿﻿(1) A peer-reviewed study indicates a 23% increase in the incidence of chronic anxiety or depression among teenagers aged 10 to 15 years who average 2 or more hours per day engaging with social media.

﻿﻿﻿﻿(2) Certain kinds of engagement with social media averaging 2 or more hours per day by teenagers aged 10 to 15 years lead, in about 28% of cases, to meaningful friendships and social and emotional learning, both of which are valuable for development at those ages.

ID: 700324

Source: GMAT OG 2024-25 (Quant Review)

chetan2u · Accepted Answer

I would really dread few of these questions from OG. This too just defies all logic that we were using in the CR for so many years. 28% have had a positive effect by usage of 2 or more hours of social media. But what about 72%, there may be many who could have been benefitted from the lesser usage.

I hope these are just experimental and do not show up in real.

Oppenheimer1945 · Answer

IF THESE QUESTIONS TURN UP IN EXAM WITH B AS ANSWER, GMAC should HIRE BETTER PEEOPLE TO SET THEIR QUESTIONS.

Making maths as verbal is like eating spicy chicken fried rice with mixing vanila ice-cream over it. You won't enjoy the taste of both.

GMATinsight · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION   Inference

(1) This statement cites a study that found an association between social-media use by teenagers 10 to 15 years and an increase in the incidence of chronic anxiety or depression among 23% of the minors observed in the study. A key word here is  association : It should be noted that this does not prove a cause-effect relationship, even if the study could motivate further investigation to see whether a causal mechanism could be identified. Even if a causal mechanism were identified, it could turn out that the use of social media was at least in part an  effect  of chronic anxiety or depression: Some teenagers might resort to social media use as a kind of escape mechanism. We should conclude that the information provided (even if the validity of the study is assumed) does not provide sufficient information to show definitively that the proposed restriction would result in developmental or health benefits for minors aged 10 to 15 years. The conclusion is that (1) is not sufficient alone; NOT sufficient.

(2) This statement indicates that use of social media by teens aged 10 to 15 years results in significant developmental benefits for 28% of teens in that age group. In other words, it indicates that social-media use by these teens  causally contributes  to a developmentally valuable effect. This implies that restriction of their social media use risks depriving a significant number of teens of the benefits resulting from their social-media use. So we can conclude that (2) is sufficient alone to provide a negative answer to the question posed; SUFFICIENT.

The correct answer is B; statement 2 alone is sufficient.

DrAnkita91 · Answer

how can 28% percent of teens means significant number of teens? how can we decide that? please can anybody help?

sayan640 · Answer

MartyMurray   KarishmaB   chetan2u  I chose E here. The answer turned out to be B. Can you please help ?

sayan640 · Answer

Significant means greater than 50 percent ..right ? How come 28% percent be a significant number ?
 chetan2u   marty  ?

sayan640 · Answer

If the answer to the following question can be E , why cant the same logic be followed in this case ? It left me totally confused. Link :- https://gmatclub.com/forum/is-there-a-c ... 30179.html

KarishmaB · Answer

Can't help. I would have marked (E) too.

Statement 2 gives us an advantage - aspects valuable for development at those ages.
Does it imply an " overall  developmental or health benefit"? Not necessary. What if in addition to these advantages, it causes decrease in confidence and fear of loneliness? Did the overall developmental or health benefit? We cannot say.

Note that statement 1 gives a correlation only so that is certainly irrelevant.

Riri15 · Answer

How is 28% a significant number? 72% might still benefit with overall development, so even B is not sufficient to ans the question

nosaj · Answer

Comes up as 'Easy' in the testbank too...

MalachiKeti · Answer

Wrong on so many levels!
- What is significant? It is so vague to convert this in mathematical terms - how can 28% be significant?
- Option B mentions data only on certain kind of engagements but the conclusion in stimulus is just engagements
- It talks about a benefit to 28% people but is it net benefit? What about the issues these people faced?

This should be an AWA Q and we should have been asked to find flaws. What's the point of learning CR if we have to choose answer choices like simpleton

MartyMurray

Nihal_Abdurahiman · Answer

There is no word association in the original statement. And I think anything effecting 23% of a population is a very significant number in real life terms, although some might argue otherwise.

purplelemonsoda · Answer

The question asks if a   significant   number of teens would experience an overall development or health benefit from limiting social media to less than 2 hours a day.

Statement 1:  
- shows correlation, not causation between increased social media use and higher rates of anxiety / depression
- doesn't support that restricting social media will result in overall developmental or health benefit to a significant # of teens
- we don't know if social media -> anxiety/depression or the other way around 
- Hence, insufficient

Statement 2:  
- provides evidence of positive developmental benefits of social media more than 2 hours a day. This shows that there is a causation effect (not just correlation) for this subset of teens/this specific sample size 
- since this only 28% are impacted in such a way, we can say that restricting social media use may not yield an overall benefit for a  significant  (28%) of teens who would loose out on important developmental opportunities.

Therefore, statement 2 is sufficient: it provides a clear basis to answer the question.

Points to note:  
- correlation vs causation: causation has implications for the problem statement; correlation is irrelevant since we don't know the order
- 'significant number' depends on context!.. imagine if it said 28% of elderly suffer a heart attack after eating a chocolate, would you say that it's not significant? ofcourse it's significant. 
- here, 28% is significant because it is a substantial minority. 
- Think about it, 28% is "nearly one-third" and surely, you'd say that's significant.

NotoriousGMATMan · Answer

The primary issue I take with this logic is that the question is asking if a significant number of teens would benefit from the restriction, not if a significant number of teens would be harmed by the restriction. 
The 28% of teens in statement 2 would be hurt by the restriction and 28% may be a significant number. However, this says nothing of the other 72% of teens. We are given no information as to if they're helped, harmed, or unaffected.
The group of 28% being harmed does not preclude the group of 72% (or multiple % groups therein) from being helped.
Surely hypothetical information that the other 72%, a more significant number, would instead benefit greatly from the restriction would be pertinent. We don't know because this only addresses the 28%.

Imagine a real world scenario where you're asked to answer this stem and given the info in statement 2. The first thing you would ask is, "what about the other 72%?"

Additionally, and this may be pedantic, the information in statement 2 tells us that were the restriction in place,  some  (28%) of the teens would not be able to benefit developmentally in  some  ways. It says nothing of the  overall  development of that 28%.

I am new to GMAT and this is my first comment here, please let me know where I'm wrong.

chini · Answer

Bunuel ,  bb , we could really get some clarity on these new kind of non math data sufficiency questions. they seem to defy logic on so many levels.

how can 28% be a majority. and how does the aspects valuable for development at those ages, translate to "overall development"

As a moderator, please help with such controversial questions. your solution matters more than the official answer

bb · Answer

Unfortunately there are several examples of the new non-meth related data sufficiency questions that have been released without being tested and frankly seem to leave some gaps. This is because this is the new question type and it was not put through the usual testing process.

You just have to use your best judgment on how much you want to get hung on these. The quality of the questions should be higher on the test, but even if it’s not, that would likely be an experimental question which would not impact your score.

SundayRoast · Answer

Another poor OG DS question. The official answer references the word 'association' - "This statement cites a study that found an association between social-media use by teenagers 10 to 15 years and an increase in the incidence of chronic anxiety or depression among 23% of the minors observed in the study. A key word here is association" yet the question does not mention the word at all.

Riri15 · Answer

even if the q said significant number instead of 28%, would it be sufficient?
If x causes Y, does non existence of X implies Y will not happen. Do we have to assume here as well X is the only cause of Y, like in CR Qs?

cledgard · Answer

That is exactly what I thought. I have been teaching Gmat for 13 years.

It has been proposed that teenagers aged 10 to 15 years be restricted

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It has been proposed that teenagers aged 10 to 15 years be restricted