A new study by Columbia and Cornell researchers has found that addictive use of social media and mobile phones is linked to worse mental health among preteens. The findings suggest a shift in focus from total screen time to identifying addictive patterns for better mental health outcomes.
A new study by researchers at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medicine has discovered that it is the addictive use of social media, video games and mobile phones, rather than total screen time, that is more strongly linked to poor mental health outcomes in preteens.
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study followed nearly 4,300 children starting at age 8 over a four-year period. It identified patterns of screen use and their impact on mental health, noting significant variation in screen time addiction over time.
“These kids experience a craving for such use that they find it hard to curtail. Parents who notice these problems should have their kids evaluated for this addictive use and then seek professional help for kids with an addiction,” co-senior leader J. John Mann, the Paul Janssen Professor of Translational Neuroscience in Psychiatry and Radiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a news release.
The study delineated various usage trajectories for social media, mobile phones and video games, identifying distinct patterns of consistent high use, increasingly addictive use and stable low use.
For instance, around half of the children exhibited high addictive use of mobile phones from the beginning, while 25% developed increasingly addictive use. Nearly 40% had either high or increasingly addictive use of social media.
Interestingly, video game use was less variable, following only high and low trajectories without a notable increase over time.
“While national surveys and previous studies have documented rising screen use, our study is the first to map longitudinal trajectories of addictive use specifically, offering new insights into when and for whom risks emerge. Policy efforts should move away from generic limits on screen time and instead focus on identifying and addressing addictive patterns of screen use,” added first and lead author Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of population health science and psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The research found that high and increasingly addictive screen use patterns were significantly associated with deteriorating mental health, including anxiety, depression, aggression and suicidal behaviors. Children displaying these addictive use patterns were found to be at a two to three times higher risk of suicidal behaviours and thoughts compared to their peers with low addictive use patterns.
Overall, about 5% of the study participants reported suicidal behaviors by the study’s fourth year, which underscores the crucial need for early intervention and monitoring.
Next steps involve focusing on interventions tailored to address addictive screen use specifically.
“Now that we know that an addictive use pattern is so important, we need to develop intervention strategies and test them in controlled clinical trials,” Mann added.
He cautioned that managing screen use effectively might require more than just reducing access, as partial access can reinforce addiction.