Teenagers Who Are Addicted To Their Screens Are More Likely To Have Emotional And Behavioral Issues 

According to new research, teenagers who show signs of being addicted to their phones, social media, and/or video games are at a much greater risk of dealing with emotional issues and suicidal behavior. 

In a recent study published in the journal Jama, more than 4,000 adolescents were tracked for four years. It found that about one in three teenagers reported increasingly addictive use of social media and smart phones. Those who were on that increasingly addictive track had about double the risk of suicidal behavior towards the end of the four years. 

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While screen time wasn’t directly linked to the mental health issues that arose, the compulsive and addictive nature of smart phone use paralleled the increase in risk. 

“For parents and educators, the discussion around mobile phones and social media has focused on limiting or banning use, but our results indicate more complex factors are involved,” Dr Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and first author of the study, said. 

“Testing interventions that work against other types of addiction may be one way to approach this type of social media and mobile phone use.”

Mental health problems in younger people have been on the rise consistently, and the increase in advanced technology has fueled that rise. 

Within the study, the researchers were specifically looking for signs of “addictive use” when it came to the youths’ connection to their devices. These signs included the smart devices impeding on their ability to focus on school, exercise, and withdrawal symptoms when they were without their devices. 

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For mobile phones, around half of the kids reported highly addictive use from the beginning of the study and remained at a high level through their early adolescence. 41% of children had high or increasingly addictive use of social media, which was associated with having a two to three times greater risk of suicidal ideation/behavior. 

“There are many factors that would induce addictive feelings, such as the designs of the social media or video games, some kids may also experience bullying and more adverse childhood that they find using phones more comfortable, but later they cannot stop using it,” Xiao said.

“We do not know if just taking away access will help, unless it is taking away access 24/7, because we know from studies of addiction management that partial access can quickly reinforce the addiction,” he said.

Professor Amy Orben, who leads the Digital Mental Health Group at the University of Cambridge, said while the study could not fully prove that technology use caused mental health problems, it spotlights a very important issue that has been growing since the start of the digital age. 

“The study importantly highlights that why and how young people use technologies, and how they feel technologies affect their lives, may matter more to their mental health than the time spent online,” she said.

“As those reporting such issues are not a small proportion of the population, supporting them should be taken seriously.”