Addictive Screen Use, Not Total Time, Linked Poor Mental Health in Teens

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedScape.

Problematic patterns of digital media use — including compulsive social media scrolling, gaming, or phone checking — may be more harmful to adolescent mental health than overall screen time, new research suggested.

Investigators found that teens with high or increasing levels of addictive digital use were more likely to report symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts or behaviors. In contrast, total screen time showed no consistent link to mental health outcomes.

Researchers analyzed 4 years of data from 4285 children (mean age, 10 years; 48% women) participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study.

They found that nearly one third of participants had an increasing addictive use trajectory for social media or mobile phones starting at age 11 years.

In adjusted models, increasing addictive use trajectories were associated with higher risks for suicide-related outcomes than low addictive use trajectories. Likewise, high addictive use trajectories across all screen types were associated with suicide-related outcomes.

Adolescents with high-peaking or increasing social media use or high video game use also had more internalizing symptoms such as depression/anxiety or externalizing symptoms such as aggression and rule-breaking.

Notably, there was no significant correlation between baseline total screen time and any suicide-related or mental health outcomes.

Source: MedScape
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/addictive-screen-use-not-total-time-linked-poor-mental-2025a1000gbs