There's no single clear answer on how screens are impacting our kids

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-11-14 03:00

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Current research into the impact of screens on children and teens show a mix of small risks and benefits, according to Australian researchers. The team selected 32 meta-analyses on screens and young people and conducted their own meta-analysis - combining results on how different types of screen use impacts health and education. They say there was evidence for both positive and negative impacts of screen use, often dependent on the type of screen use. For example, while literacy was slightly reduced in children who used screens more, literacy was improved in children who watch TV together with their parents. The researchers say findings are currently limited by a lack of high-quality meta-analyses in this area, and more research needs to be done to get a clearer picture on how different contexts influence the impact of screens.

Media release

From: Springer Nature

Public health: Screen time is associated with small differences in youth education and health outcomes

The time that children and adolescents spend interacting with screens is associated with both benefits and risks to education and health, but these effects are small, according to a review of 102 meta-analyses published this week in Nature Human Behaviour.

Screen use has increased in recent decades. Previous research has explored associations of screen use with health, wellbeing, and education, and the results continue to be mixed. Additionally, different types of screen time — such as watching TV, browsing social media or playing video games — are associated with different outcomes.

Taren Sanders and colleagues harmonized effects from 102 meta-analyses encompassing 2,451 studies and 1,937,501 participants aged up to 18 years old. Of these they identified 43 effects from 32 meta-analyses (including 681 studies) that met their criteria for statistical certainty; they then conducted their own meta-analysis on these data. They report associations between different types of screen use and health and educational outcomes in children and adolescents. These outcomes include depression and body composition, general literacy and general learning.

The authors found evidence for both negative and positive associations with screen time. For example, they find that literacy is slightly reduced in children with greater screen use, but literacy was slightly increased when children watched TV together with their parents. For health outcomes, they found that digital advertising was associated with a small increase in unhealthy food intake, and social media use was associated with a slightly increased risk of depression.

The authors highlight that these findings are limited by the low number of meta-analyses that were of sufficient quality to be included in their analyses. They conclude that rather than focusing on the aggregated effects of screen use, further research needs to give greater consideration to the content, context, and environment of the use.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Human Behaviour

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Australian Catholic University, Macquarie University, The University of New South Wales, The University of Queensland, The University of Sydney, University of Southern Queensland, Deakin University

Funder: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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