Digital devices cause a deficit of attention among young people

The teenagers who frequently use digital apparatus have it twice the greater the chances of presenting symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ), according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Ottawa. University of Southern California (United States)

published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, evaluated 2,600 adolescents for two years, focusing on the consequences for their mental health of the use of social networks video games or platforms of video .

In their study, scientists started with 4,100 students aged 15 to 16 in Los Angeles, representing a balanced demographic and socio-economic status Researchers focused on adolescents because this step marks a period for the start of ADHD and unrestricted access to digital technologies . 19659004] Then they filtered up to 2,587 participants because some had pre-existing symptoms of ADHD . The researchers asked students how often they used 14 popular digital media platforms . They ordered the frequency of media use in three: unused, medium and high. Then, they monitored the students every six months between 2014 and 2016.

In the end, they found that 9.5% of the 114 children who used half of the platforms of digital media frequently and 10.5 percent of the 51 children who used the 14 platforms frequently showed symptoms of ADHD . In contrast, 4.6% of the 495 students who were not frequent users of any digital activity had symptoms of ADHD a figure close to the rates of the disease in the population General

"We can not confirm the causality of the study, but it was a statistically significant badociation." We can say that adolescents who are exposed to higher levels of digital media were more likely to develop symptoms of ADHD "said Adam Leventhal, professor of preventive medicine and of Psychology

FM