Is Screen Time Destroying a Generation?
New research is getting us closer to the answer.
Take a look at the posts in our blog. No really, go take a look! We’ll wait. What you see represents a small sample of the thousands of studies that exist on social media and well-being. Many suggest that the two are linked, but a not insignificant number contest these connections.
There are two main problems with most of the research published to date:
Existing research is largely cross-sectional, meaning that it analyses a group at one point in time. These snapshots lack an analysis of individual change over an interval, which is vital to our understanding of the relationship and the direction of the relationship between social media and well-being.
In other words, cross-sectional research does not provide strong enough evidence to prove whether social media is definitively linked to well-being. It’s also not able to conclusively determine whether changes in social media use cause changes in mental health or the other way around.
The few studies that have observed social media and well-being over time (such as this one), have yielded conflicting results.
In addition, most research on social media and well-being focuses on the between-person level, not within-person level. To better understand what this means, consider the following example:
A between-person study surveyed a class and found that students who made their beds in the morning tended to have better grades. From this, some might assume that making your bed has something to do with a good report card. A within-person study then asked students to do the opposite of what they usually do in the morning. The researchers found grades largely stayed the same.
For the most part, researchers have studied how well-being differs between groups with low and high social media use (the bed-makers and non-bed-makers, so to speak). Fewer studies have observed how well-being changes as individuals’ social media use varies—as people switch from making their bed to not making their bed or vice versa, to carry on the example. This is important because between-person differences don’t always translate to within-person changes.
It was clear to Sarah Coyne and her team of researchers that more studies on within-person changes over time were needed to clear the confusion around social media and well-being. So, they spent eight years surveying 500 adolescents on their screen time and symptoms of depression and anxiety. What did they find? Drumroll please…
“Increased time spent on social media was not associated with increased mental health issues across development when examined at the individual level.”
Eureka! We can pack up and move on to other blog topics! Or, can we? Continue reading for our breakdown of how Coyne’s team reached their conclusions and what it means for parents and future research.
What Causes Depression?
Let’s circle back to some basics for a minute—what do we know about the causes of depression? The illness involves multiple processes, so there’s not really a single cause. Instead, a combination of stressors and vulnerabilities factor into its onset. Examples of stressors include traumatic events and transitional periods such as puberty.
How Can We Prove Whether Social Media and Mental Health Are Related Once and For All?
According to the authors of the Coyne study, if social media truly does impact mental health, teens who use social media more should experience higher levels of depression and anxiety. Ultimately though, we would need to show that when teens increase their social media use beyond their typical amount, their anxiety and depression symptoms are worse than usual. We would similarly need to establish that when adolescents decrease their social media use, their anxiety and depression symptoms improve—like a seesaw that has screen time on one end and mental health on the other.
Is Screen Time to Blame for Increased Depression and Anxiety in Teens?
After surveying 500 adolescents on an annual basis for eight years, Coyne’s team found that average levels of depression and anxiety symptoms were generally low. However, symptoms increased as participants got older, peaking at 18.
Coyne and the other researchers also found that the amount of screen time was moderately tied to anxiety and depression at the between-person level. Put differently, teens who spent more time using social media tended to experience higher levels of anxiety and depression on average. When teens’ screen use increased more rapidly over time, they encountered a more rapid rise in symptoms as well. This reflects the findings of a suite of studies.
Yet, when adolescents used more social media than usual, they did not experience an increase in symptoms of depression or anxiety beyond their typical levels. Likewise, decreases in screen time did not coincide with decreases in symptoms at the individual level. This goes against what many other studies have been suggesting.
So, is the case closed or not? The between-person results of the eight year study affirm who is more likely to experience mental health issues (teens who spend more time on social media). Conversely, the within-person findings dispute the idea that changes in one cause changes in the other.
Coyne’s team expressed that they hoped their work would move the conversation from a debate about screen time to a discussion about other variables. That is, other factors could be responsible for the link that’s been observed between social media and mental health. Specific online activities like scrolling versus messaging a friend could be driving mental health outcomes, for example.
Finally, what should parents do with this information? How should they reconcile this study’s findings with leading organisations’ recommendations to limit screen time?
Our suggestion: Maintain open communication and explain the risks and rewards of internet use.
Not all screen time is equal, so consider the content and context of online activities.
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Study Objective & Methods
Does Time Spent Using Social Media Impact Mental Health?: An Eight Year Longitudinal Study.
Sarah Coyne, PhD; Adam Rogers, PhD; Jessica Zurcher, PhD; Laura Stockdale, MSc; McCall Booth, MSc
Published in Computers in Human Behaviour, 2020.
This study aimed to test a causal model of the association between time spent using social media and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Participants included 500 teens who completed annual surveys between the ages of 13 and 20. The adolescents were recruited from the Flourishing Families Project, an ongoing study of inner family life. The Flourishing Families Project randomly selected families in a northwestern city in the United States who reflected the local demographics. Depression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children. Anxiety was assessed using the generalized anxiety disorder subscale from the Spence Child Anxiety Inventory. Notably, this was a non-clinical sample and participants self-reported their depression and anxiety symptoms. Time spent using social media was self-reported as well.
Social Media and Well-Being Training
This research (and all our social media and well-being articles) have laid the foundation for our 3-course program designed for anyone wanting to approach social media and communications in a way that protects well-being and puts people first. Learn more here.
