A groundbreaking study of the impact of modern technology on adolescent minds shows that nearly a third of children show an increasing sign of addiction to mobile phones, social media and video games.
These younger users are more likely to suffer from mental health issues than their peers who exhibit less compulsive patterns of behavior, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday.
US research is a rare effort to capture multiyear trends in online behavior and assess potential links with poor mental health. The bad results suggest that they are not related to high screen times in themselves, but to craving, difficulty in interfering with sleep, school or relationships, and difficulty in interfering, the researchers said.
The findings add a fierce debate about the long-term impact of digital technology, especially in children with still-developed brains and in times of ubiquitous smartphones.
“Our research suggests that policy efforts should move away from the general limitations of screen time and instead focus on identifying and addressing addiction patterns of screen use,” said Yunyu Xiao, the study’s lead author and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine/New York-Presbyterian.
“This challenges a common narrative that often equates more screen time with greater harm. In contrast, we discovered how young people use technology.
Scientists looked at four years of data from the American adolescent brain cognitive development study, which began in 2016. Jamapaper looked at the findings of 4,285 children, ages 9 or 10, when the study began.
Over 5% of children reported suicidal behavior, and nearly 18% reported suicidal thoughts by the fourth year of surveillance, researchers found.
Participants with a highly addictive pattern of using mobile phones, social media, and video games were more likely to report at least 1.5 times more mental health issues than at certain levels with a less addictive level.
Limitations to the study included that data were self-reported and could have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, so the researchers said.
Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of smartphone Free Childhood, a UK-based campaign group, said the study created a “strong case” to delay exposure to addictive digital experiences until children get older and equip them to manage them.
“Families are in an impossible position. They are trying to protect children in a digital world built for adults. “Now is the time for bold, population-wide action that will change standards, reduce harm, increase the time for children to grow up and thrive freely from addictive algorithms.”
Professor Lisa Henderson, dean of the Department of Psychology at York University, said the paper was “critical and timely.”
“We also need to determine the neurobiological and psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between addictive use and mental health outcomes,” Henderson said. “For example, convergent evidence suggests that sleep disorders may be a mediating mechanism here.”
