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Study of 500,000 Teens Suggests Association Between Excessive Screen Time and Depression (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bleak-findings dept.

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.

28 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. That explains it by eneville · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, I think that explains facebook users a bit! :)

    --
    Why UNIX?
  2. Coincidence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The suicide rate also coincides with the great recession, the increase in opioid use, the popularity of the Kardashians, and the Obama administration. Take your pick.

    1. Re:Coincidence? by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The suicide rate also coincides with the great recession, the increase in opioid use, the popularity of the Kardashians, and the Obama administration. Take your pick.

      Most likely answer highlighted. Makes one depressed to see how stupid people can get rich and famous without talent.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  3. Discussion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This was touched on in a discussion between Jonathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson: https://youtu.be/4IBegL_V6AA?t=4624

  4. That old saying about correlation and causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ugly teenage kids also have less sex than attractive teenage kids. From this we can conclude that if you don't have enough sex, you become ugly.

    Back in the day, before computers, the same news would've said there was a correlation between excessive TV-watching and depression, and before that, excessive radio-listening and depression. Can you figure it out?

  5. No mention of causation, for once by GuB-42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I looks like editors learned their lesson.
    If you read carefully, in the summary, no mention is made of any causal relationship so the following possibilities are still open :
    1- excessive screen time causes depression
    2- depression causes excessive screen time
    3- what causes depression also causes excessive screen time

    1. Re:No mention of causation, for once by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Very true, it's left entirely open to interpretation and further research.

      Personally I suspect the issue is to be found with the stress of feeling like you have to be at your best 24/7 because all your friends (which at that age is more important than anything else) are constantly watching and silently judging. I could be wrong, of course, but it does sound plausible to me.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:No mention of causation, for once by Kohath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Anything that involves a lack of physical activity is likely correlated with depression.

    3. Re:No mention of causation, for once by gurps_npc · · Score: 2

      It seems clear to me that some things that cause depression will obviously cause excessive screen time. For example, if you break both your legs you might be unhappy and unable to do much besides use electronics.

      Similarly, depression could easily cause self-medicating behavior, including watching movies or playing games.

      As for the idea that excessive screen time causes depression, that seems like a fairly common example of the 'new media is evil trope' that has existed since the printed word was invented - not just movies, comic books, videogames, D&D, but pretty much every new media gets this stupid trope from the conservatives that are not the intended target of the new media.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    4. Re:No mention of causation, for once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Parents are in a good position to assess the effects at least on Children. You get to talk to a lot of other parents obviously, as well as to experience the behaviour changes.

      1 Affects sleep. They will generally be less able to want to sleep
      2 Affects concentration. They can concentrate for hours on a phone. But I've seen it first hand that anything not as engaging makes them literally sleepy. They won't have the ability to do anything even mildly less "engaging".
      3 Anxiety. Whatever it couases, it can be very strong. You see it with games mostly
      4 Dependency and Withdrawal sympthoms. Removing a phone from a children of any age (1 to 10) triggers agressive behaviour, rage, tantrums, etc.
      5. Confused reality. If the chilren are very young, they have a harder time separating the games from the real world. You see this when game-rules and reality colide. Remember, kids build a model of the world at early stages.
      6. Addictive behaviours. If you know how new studios and app creators work, you'd know that there are psychologists designing the games, the rewards and punishment systems. They literally get to apply scientific research to make the users addicted, and purposefully implement pattners to createanxiety, frustration, pleasure, joy, envy, etc.
      7. Immersion. Most often you see strong identification with game characters or the "online persona" they represent. Basically, it weakens their identification with the real self, and it's replaced by several virtual characters they represent.
      8. Physical detachment of the Ego. We see this in adults too: the person in front of you pays moreattention to what's happeningat the phone than the person in front.
      9. I could continue with other things which would be tied to particular aspects (like social media, etc). But I'll stop at 7.

      All in all, I think the new technologies are awesome, but just like nuclear energy, it brings many dangers. From what I stated, it clearly strongly messes with their mood, anxiety level, attitude, model-building of the world, sleep cycle, social behavior, ability to concentrate, feelings, etc. and withdraws them from the real immediate world we can to live in for millions of years.

      I'd say that they migrate to a virtual world, segmented in apps and fantasy realities of different kinds, made very demanding by the app creators (army of Psy Phd. designing rules based on huge telematics about usage vs unaware children) and making them voluntary slaves to these realities.

      Our society is become more addicted to anything that produces rewards. They are retrating to realities that are more addictive and engaging than the real world around, realities that can dissapear overnight, and where anything can happen to their personas.

      I still haven't figured out how to balance this, except for limiting apps to what I see is more educational and build less anxiety, and limiting the exposure time.

      Back in my days, games where also addictive, and while the scale and sophistication has dramatically changed, and games and social apps have become permanent and "connected", in it's core, it's a similar nature. I remember my old days playing Starcraft for 6 straight hours. It was a nice retreat, and I can't say I noticed the effect other than say that now it has moved towards children starting at age 1 or 2, and has reached penetrated into every wanting children as phones penetration is over 100% now.

      If you want to find out if there is causality between screen time and depression, just follow the breadcrumbs: has the virtual work become a more rewarding place for us than the real world?

    5. Re:No mention of causation, for once by dfenstrate · · Score: 2

      It seems clear to me that some things that cause depression will obviously cause excessive screen time. For example, if you break both your legs you might be unhappy and unable to do much besides use electronics.

      Similarly, depression could easily cause self-medicating behavior, including watching movies or playing games.

      As for the idea that excessive screen time causes depression, that seems like a fairly common example of the 'new media is evil trope' that has existed since the printed word was invented - not just movies, comic books, videogames, D&D, but pretty much every new media gets this stupid trope from the conservatives that are not the intended target of the new media.

      As a parent it's been my experience that if I let my kids have too much screen time, or play too late, their behavior goes down the tubes. My (almost 7 year old) daughter frequently visits a friend's house where they quickly settle in front of a screen of some variety, and she comes back acting like a brat pretty much every time. I'll be talking things over with the other parents next time.

      My son (8.5 years) less so, but there's certain games- like Roblox- that turn him into an insufferable little jerk if I allow any play time.

      So yes, I limit screen time based on my observations of how they behave when I don't limit screen time- and it's not much of a stretch to think this will continue to be true for quite a while, until they learn to self regulate.

      So you can blather on about tropes, and eeeevvvillll stupiiiidd conservatives, but the headline summary lines up with my personal experience, and other parents have similar experiences. Coloring, drawing, reading, playing- none of these activities have the same downsides as screen time.

      Yes, I allow some screen time. As I write this, my daughter is playing minecraft, and my son is watching people on youtube play minecraft. But it's not going to go on all night.

      --
      Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
  6. Re: That old saying about correlation and causatio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  7. It's Facebook by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    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.

    Nobody posts pictures of themselves from Monday mornings, when the shadows around their eyes make them look like a Panda.

    1. Re:It's Facebook by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      You know, until I looked I was absolutely 100% certain that pandas have a dark face with light patches.

      What was I thinking of?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:It's Facebook by zifn4b · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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
    3. Re:It's Facebook by zifn4b · · Score: 2

      Um, no. You're projecting the viewpoint of *one* religious tradition into the origins of *all* myths and legend

      This is a tired old stupid argument from the stupidity and ignorance of folks like Ray Comfort and Ken Hamm. Investigating the universe and recording the findings aka science is not a fucking belief system. Science is also subject to change based on new information unlike most religions. Equating any religious belief of the supernatural based on faith alone with science demonstrates complete and utter ignorance and stupidity. And yes it is psychological weakness. People who turn to religion are afraid of death and want to believe in something afterwards and they also want their trials in this life to be meaningful. It's very egocentric. It's not about being a better person, it's about wanting benefits.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  8. "Lying with Statistics" v2.0 by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So while there does not seem to be a direct argument that there is a causal relationship where "screen time" causes depression, the lie is implicit. First, the "screen time" is called "excessive", i.e. "bad". Then the direly needed warning that correlation is not causation is noticeably absent. To make this worse, it is not called "correlation", but the far less well defined term "association" is used.

    This is just another example manipulative writing. That is indeed bad, because it obscures reality and replaces it by the preconceptions of the author about what must be "bad" (and hence everything must be either proof the author is right or must be ignored).

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  9. Re:I am not surprised by lucasnate1 · · Score: 2

    Sure, and no repression is caused at all by religious authority figures. There are no places that in the united states that teach children that masturbating is a sin and abortion is murder.

    Sometimes I think that SJWs are the new jews, getting blamed by right wingers for everything, including their miserable sex lives.

    --
    Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
  10. Huge gender differences in the study surprised me by Gibgezr · · Score: 3

    "The rise in depressive symptoms and suicide-related outcomes was exclusive to females. This suggests that screen time, perhaps especially social media, may have larger effects on adolescent girls’ mental health than on boys’ (and that is indeed what we found, with social media significantly correlated with depressive symptoms only among girls in some analyses and stronger correlations in others). The pattern for males, with increases in suicide deaths but not in depressive symptoms or suicide-related outcomes, suggests that boys’ suicide deaths may be driven by other disorders and risk factors not assessed here."
    So what is really behind this is obsessive gossipping?
    (Since I have 3 daughters, I suppose I could word that less flippantly. "chronicling the accounts of their peers and reporting to each other on social media". Nah, that failed to sound less flippant. I'd insert my anecdotal evidence now, but my n=3 (4 if you count my son) is not going to help much.)
    Aside from that vital information, correlation != causation, but it does point out a possible area for more study in this case.
    Their summation is pretty weak:
    "In conclusion, adolescent mental health issues rose sharply since 2010, especially among females. New media screen time is both associated with mental health issues and increased over this time period. Thus, it seems likely that the concomitant rise of screen time and adolescent depression and suicide is not coincidental."
    So ya, more work needed.

  11. I need to get outside now and then. by ruddk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I figured it was just because I was an old fart that I appreciate being "offline" now and then. :D I know that when I have been working too much and spending too much time inside and/or "connected", I need put the phone in airplane mode, get out and get some fresh air and do something, otherwise my mood drops. It was just above freezing last night and I felt sort of down, but I went on a bicycle ride for 2 hours with the phone turned off. It is really doing wonders for my mood and lets not ignore the pleasure of getting back home to a hot shower and a comfy couch afterwards. :D I have opted out of a job where I needed to be available and on call. We did get paid for that and I recently had a weekend where I had to be on standby, and it reminded me that it was annoying and not worth the money. I was biking in my local forest and all the time had to remember to not go further away than I could be home and logged on at work within an hour. I deleted my Facebook account almost a year ago. After weighing the pros and cons of doing it, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't an worthwhile "investment" of my time and attention as it didn't really improve my life quality that much. There were a few benefits of staying connected to people and getting updates about things in the local community but all in all, it was mostly robbing my time. Also, Facebook's website, app and features(like notifications) have been constructed in such a way that they are "teaching" you that you have to check it all the time. If you don't do that, it will "ping" you that someone you know did something and you should check it out. If you decide you don't want that, they also won't tell you when someone is contacting you directly.

    --
    L'Idiot
  12. Re: That old saying about correlation and causatio by Jzanu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wow the idiocy here is amazing. You should realuze research uses more sophisticated techniques than you learned in fresher statistics. Have you any understanding of structural equation modeling as a research method? They incorporate causality.

  13. Re:Huge gender differences in the study surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  14. I get depressed... by GerryGilmore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... 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!

  15. Re: That old saying about correlation and causatio by sheramil · · Score: 5, Funny

    Also, does an increase in teen suicide rates ever correlate with a decrease in adult suicide rates?

    Yes. Teens who commit suicide rarely go on to become adults who commit suicide.

  16. Re:The teenage years are depressing by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good for all the teenagers that committed the bravery of suicide, this world is a system fucked over by parental aliens and parental adults that can't handle the physical and neuro physiological freshness of the teenage animal.

    You're the one who's fucked up, if you can write misanthropic crap like that with a straight face.

    Get yourself some help, please.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  17. Reality is Depressing by Joviex · · Score: 2

    They are depressed not because of technology itself, but because that technology is used to bring you REALTIME NEWS. And surprise! The world is a cesspool of depression -- HUMAN ON HUMAN hate!

    Do we really need more beyond the fucking obvious fact that realtime news is fucking depressing, thus, it depresses people?

  18. Re:I am not surprised by William+Baric · · Score: 2

    Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being. If abortion is not unlawful, then, by definition, it is not murder.

    And of course, there is the question if an embryo or a fetus (particularly in the early stages) can be considered as a human being. Personally, I don't consider a bunch of cells as a human being.

  19. Why We Sleep - Read this book or die young by ssclift · · Score: 2

    Professor Matthew Walker, Director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, published "Why We Sleep" last month. http://www.simonandschuster.co... I devoured the book; it's good science and remarkably well written. It covers a lot of the current work, and that work would go a long way to explaining this effect. There is so much going on when we sleep that is key to mental and physical health, it's not just "downtime", and to a degree I had not imagined. Sadly, I now realize I must consume less of my beloved coffee. Gladly, my sleep habits were already pretty good and the kids in my house have an early bedtime, no tech in the bedroom rule.