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Links between screen use and depressive symptoms in adolescents over 16 years: Is there evidence for increased harm?
Author(s) -
Ferguson Christopher J.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.13008
Subject(s) - psychology , social media , harm , screen time , aside , suicide prevention , depression (economics) , poison control , social psychology , medicine , medical emergency , art , literature , political science , law , economics , macroeconomics , obesity
Recent scholarship has been divided on whether an observed increase in suicides in the United States among teenagers and preteens (12-18) can be attributed to an increased use in social screen media beginning in 2009. If these concerns are accurate effect sizes for the relationship between screen use and suicide should increase over the 16 years since 2001. The current study used the Florida Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data (n = 45,992) from 2001-2017 to track effect sizes for screen/depression correlations, controlling for age and gender. A second dataset from the UK Understanding Society dataset (ns for each wave ranged between 3,536 and 4,850) was used to study associations between time spent on social media and emotional problems. Meta-regression was be used to examine whether effect sizes increase across time. Results generally did not support the hypothesis that effect sizes between screen and social media use are increasing over time. Aside from the trends over time, for any given year, most effect sizes were below the r = .10 threshold used for interpretation with the exception of computer use which was just at that threshold. It is concluded that screens and social media use are unlikely to bear major responsibility for youth suicide trends.