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A new study, published in the journal Clinical psychological science, suggests that the time spent by teens on their phone and online is not so bad.
The study followed teenagers on their smartphones to check if more time spent using digital technology was associated with worse mental health outcomes. The researchers – Candice Odgers, professor of psychological sciences at the University of California at Irvine; Michaeline Jensen, assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Madeleine George, postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University; and Michael Russell, an assistant professor of behavioral health at Pennsylvania State University – have found little evidence of longitudinal or daily links between the use of digital technology and adolescent mental health.
"It may be time for adults to quarrel over whether smartphones and social media are good or bad for teen mental health and are starting to find ways to help them better in their online lives and offline, "said Odgers.
"Contrary to the common belief that smartphones and social media are detrimental to the mental health of adolescents, we do not see much support for the idea that time spent on phones and online is associated with a risk. increased mental health problems, "said Jensen.
The study surveyed more than 2,000 young people, then intensively followed a subsample of nearly 400 teenagers on their smartphone several times a day for two weeks. The adolescents in the study were between 10 and 15 years old and represented the economically and racially diverse population of youth attending public schools in North Carolina.
The researchers collected reports on teenage mental health symptoms three times a day, as well as their daily use of the technology each night. They asked whether young people who used digital technologies were more likely to experience mental health symptoms later and whether the days adolescents spent more time using digital technologies for different purposes were also those where mental health were more common. In both cases, the increased use of digital technology was not related to a deterioration of mental health.
When associations were observed, they were small and in the opposite direction that could be expected, given all the recent concerns about digital technology, which affects the mental health of adolescents. For example, teens who reported having sent more text messages during the study period actually reported feeling better (less depressed) than teens who used less often textators.
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Material provided by University of California – Irvine. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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