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Study of 500,000 Teens Suggests Association Between Excessive Screen Time and Depression (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Depression and suicide rates in teenagers have jumped in the last decade -- doubling between 2007 and 2015 for girls -- and the trend suspiciously coincides with when smartphones became their constant companions. A recent study places their screen time around nine hours per day. Another study, published on Tuesday, suggests that suicide and depression could be connected to the rise of smartphones, and increased screen time. Around 58 percent more girls reported depression symptoms in 2015 than in 2009, and suicide rates rose 65 percent. Smack in the middle of that window of time, smartphones gained market saturation.
In Twenge's new study, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, the researchers looked at two samples: a nationally representative survey by ongoing study "Monitoring the Future" out of the University of Michigan, which is administered annually to 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, and the Centers for Disease Control's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a sample of high school students administered by the CDC every other year. (Both surveys began in 1991.) Altogether, over 500,000 young people were included. The study authors examined trends in how teens used social media, the internet, electronic devices (including gaming systems and tablets), and smartphones, as well as how much time they spent doing non-screen activities like homework, playing sports, or socializing. Comparing these to publicly available data on mental health and suicide for these ages between 2010 and 2017 showed "a clear pattern linking screen activities with higher levels of depressive symptoms/suicide-related outcomes and non-screen activities with lower levels," the researchers wrote in the study. All activities involving screens were associated with higher levels of depression or suicide and suicidal thinking, and activities done away from a screen were not.
In Twenge's new study, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, the researchers looked at two samples: a nationally representative survey by ongoing study "Monitoring the Future" out of the University of Michigan, which is administered annually to 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, and the Centers for Disease Control's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a sample of high school students administered by the CDC every other year. (Both surveys began in 1991.) Altogether, over 500,000 young people were included. The study authors examined trends in how teens used social media, the internet, electronic devices (including gaming systems and tablets), and smartphones, as well as how much time they spent doing non-screen activities like homework, playing sports, or socializing. Comparing these to publicly available data on mental health and suicide for these ages between 2010 and 2017 showed "a clear pattern linking screen activities with higher levels of depressive symptoms/suicide-related outcomes and non-screen activities with lower levels," the researchers wrote in the study. All activities involving screens were associated with higher levels of depression or suicide and suicidal thinking, and activities done away from a screen were not.
This was touched on in a discussion between Jonathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson: https://youtu.be/4IBegL_V6AA?t=4624
Screen time to me is misleading because what if I have merely replaced newspaper time and book time with one device that happens to have a screen. My underlying behaviour has not changed.
Also, does an increase in teen suicide rates ever correlate with a decrease in adult suicide rates? I wonder if their is simply an ultimate biological cause for the depression and eventually those afflicted will find a way and a time. Maybe things like social media and online bullying just accelerate the process.
Teens see all their so-called friends' styled up, filtered and photoshopped pictures, so they think everybody has a better life than themselves, small wonder they get depressed.
That only would happen if you're psychologically weak. Let's face it, while life has many awesome things, life is ultimately depressing. We don't appear to be here for any reason. There is no evidence of any objective purpose or even a creator of us or the universe. We are alone, on a tiny rock, floating through a gigantic vacuum of space. We have no evidence that there is anything beyond death and as far as we know, it is the ultimate end. Oblivion.
Now I think your idea has merit. We are projecting delusion at ourselves. But it's not just from Facebook. Yes, these perfect pictures with tricks and so forth gives a sense of "wow that person is having a magical time". But the problem is far more pervasive. We made up stories about gods, afterlives, we gave ourselves reasons to think we are the center of a universe made for us and shattering the illusion gives rise to a change that manifests initially in sadness.
What our culture ought to do instead of trying to give children a sense of illusion to evoke false joy is teach them how wonderful and amazing this universe is in a factual way and instill in them the idea that it's a miracle that any of us are here to experience it for the short time we are here. For that, we should be truly grateful
We'll make great pets
Ahh. Not surprising at all. "excessive screen time" for teenage girls exposes them to far, far too much third wave feminism for any of their egos, identities, or careers to remain intact unless they're prepared to toss the whole mess out the window, in which case they're suddenly "homophobic" and "transphobic" and at the center of an attack wing of Antifa wannabe's.
I'm watching it happen to my daughter and her circle of friends, and it's *nasty* once it sets in. I've been trying to introduce to my friends who actually *were* feminists in the 80's and even some of my oldest gay and transgender friends, to try and defuse the damage. It's nasty out there.
... just watching people walk around with the damned things glued to their face. Crikey - you can't even have a normal conversation anymore with anyone!