Screen time is a concern for parents and mental health advocates but looking at screen time may be treating the symptom rather than the disease. What is a true harbinger for risk of mental health problems is addictive behavior in young people.

National surveys have documented rising screen use but a new paper mapped longitudinal trajectories of addictive use specifically, rather generic limits on screen time.The data were social media use of nearly 4,300 children enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, starting at age 8, and how use changed over the next four years. 

They found a big difference between video games and social media. Where video games remained high use or low, there was in increasing group over the study, with social media approximately 40% of children had high or increasingly addictive use. Addictive use of screens (excessive use that interfered with schoolwork, home responsibilities, or other activities) had about half of the children reporting high addictive use from the start of the study that remained high through early adolescence, and about 25% developed increasingly addictive use as they aged. 


Image: Storyblocks

 The youths were presented with various statements about screen use (e.g. “I play video games so I can forget about my problems,” and “I feel the need to use social media apps more and more.” Anxiety, depression, or aggression were associated with high and increasingly addictive screen use worse mental health. 5% of the nearly 4,300 study participants exhibited suicidal behaviors, from preparatory actions to suicide attempts during the study’s fourth year.

The authors recommend that children entering adolescence should be watched for addictive use.