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With everything that slips, scrolls, chat-chat, surf and stream that consumes the mind of a teenager, an American parent might well look at his teenager and wonder if a sustained thought is even possible.
This concern, suggesting that teens who spend more time switching over from a growing number of digital media platforms present a growing range of attention difficulties and impulse control problems.
In a group of over 2,500 high school students from Los Angeles Researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles and UC San Diego discovered that people who engaged in more digital media activities over a two-year period reported an increasing number of symptoms. related to attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity.
The badociation between the use of digital media and ADHD symptoms in adolescents was modest. But it was clear that this could not be considered a statistical stroke of luck. On average, at each notch, a teenager has scaled up the numerical engagement, his average level of ADHD symptoms has increased by about 10%.
The results do not show that the prolific use of digital media causes a lot of ADHD. unless this leads to a level of impairment that would justify a diagnosis of ADHD or a pharmaceutical treatment.
Indeed, it is possible that the relationship is reversed – that attention problems lead a teenager to a more intensive online engagement
when 95% of teens own or have access to a smartphone and 45 % say they are online "almost constantly", the new study raises serious concerns about the future of attention. It was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The results are that mental health professionals are rethinking their understanding of ADHD, a psychiatric condition that has long been thought to begin in early childhood and last a lifetime. The hyperactivity, hyperactivity and difficulty in maintaining attention, affect about 7% of children and adolescents.
But the disorder is more and more diagnosed in adolescents and adults, and in some cases it disappears. If the symptoms were missed earlier, developed later or are caused by changing circumstances is not clear.
The new research, involving 2,577 second-year and junior students attending public schools in Los Angeles County, raises the possibility that, for some, provoked or exacerbated by the hyper stimulating instances of a bidding market Digital twinkling, rattling, vibrating, always as close as the wireless device in their pocket.
"We believe that we are studying the appearance of new symptoms that were not present at the beginning of the study," said USC psychologist Adam M. Leventhal, lead author of the 39, study.
The study "is just the latest in a series of research results showing that the excessive use of digital media This may have consequences on the well-being of adolescents Said Dr. John M. Twenge, a psychologist at the State University of San Diego, who conducted research on the use of teens and smartphones, but who was not involved in the new job. 19659002] Twenge's research, published this year in the journal Emotion, has explored a sharp drop in the happiness and satisfaction of American teens since 2012. Based on data from 1.1 million teenagers, Twenge and his colleagues found the highest dissatisfaction. locked on a screen. As time spent in offline activities has increased, happiness too.
Leventhal and his colleagues evaluated the numerical engagement of their 15- and 16-year-old subjects five times over a two-year period – when they started the study and four other times at six months of age. 39; interval. They asked students to think about last week and whether and to what extent they had engaged in 14 separate online activities. These included checking social media sites, browsing the web, sending comments on online content, texting, video games, video chat, and broadcasting movies or TVs [19659014]. The researchers attributed to the student a "cumulative index of media use" between 1 and 14.
Four out of five students recognized "high frequency use" of "high school students". at least one activity, of which 54% told researchers they were checking social media "several times a day". A little over two-thirds used high frequency up to four online activities at one point during the course of the study.
Students were also asked if they had experienced 18 ADHD symptoms, including organizational problems, completion of work, staying still or staying on task. If they recognized having six of them, they were considered "symptomatic of ADHD". At various points in the study, between 4.8% and 6.9% of subjects met this criterion
. with escalating scale "intensity of media use" was quite modest: about 10 percent for each step.
But compared to the lightest users, the most engaged adolescents were more than twice as symptomatic. Of the 495 students who reported not using the high-frequency media initially, 4.6% were categorized as symptom-positive at some point. Of the 114 people who participated in seven digital activities several times a day, 9.5% were symptomatic during follow-up. And for the 51 students who reported high frequency use of the 14 digital activities, 10.5% met the symptom criteria.
This double increase in the chances of being symptomatic "is not a small effect," Twenge said. Indeed, he suggests that if a teenager who is a high-intensity digital user could be weaned off his devices, he could halve his risk of significant symptoms of ADHD
"Mostly, a change of style of life that halves the risk of a bad result is more than justified, "said Mr. Twenge. In the annals of research on disease prevention, "the vast majority of interventions are less effective."
In addition, she added, the use of digital media is something a teenager can change. Genes and traumatic life experience – the two risk factors for ADHD in a person – are not so easy to change.
The authors of the study acknowledged that some students had attention problems that did not raise any problem. were important enough to drive their oversized use of digital media. Since ADHD is related to sensation-seeking behavior, and the use of digital media is very stimulating, subjects with "subclinical" attention problems could have become the heaviest digital users in the world. # 39; study. As the study unfolded, their symptoms could simply be more pronounced.
To rule out other influences, the team adjusted the raw data to account for factors already strongly related to ADHD, including males (boys more than twice the probability that girls received diagnosis of ADHD), a family history of addiction, depressive symptoms and delinquency.
In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan, wrote that the "constant" quality of digital media may deprive the adolescent brain of the ability to to rest and refresh in which brain. Teenagers call the "default mode". Teens who attach to the next success of digital affirmation may lose the ability to endure boredom, she writes, and a never-ending stream of notifications can reduce a child's ability to stay focused on difficult tasks.
But this may not fully explain the results of the study. If digital manic engagement moves sleep and exercise, it would easily explain the executive function of a child, writes Radesky, a behavioral development specialist.
Lawrence Diller, a child psychiatrist and ADHD specialist who has practiced for over four decades in Walnut Creek, Calif., Also expressed skepticism.
"It's interesting to think that exposure to changing media information inattentive or distracted teenager," he said. "But I do not think that's what's going on here "
Diller said that he suspected that children who spend a lot of time on social media and games are not interested in school or the chores that their parents badigned to them. Have just found another outlet for their energies.
(EDITORS: HISTORY CAN TERMINATE HERE)
"I would be very interested to see these children in five to ten years," said Diller , author of the books "Running on Ritalin" and "Remembering Ritalin." "Their life situation has changed and I bet you find that games and social media are disappearing. They have other things that they want to get.
"It is appealing to think that television and video games and social media are changing the brain," he added. "Maybe they're doing it, but if that's the case, the brain can go back."
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