Screen Time: A Small Pixel in the Big Picture of Adolescent Mental Health?

Based on this study efforts should be directed at gender-specific strategies, encourage organized activities, and (to a lesser degree) focusing on balanced screen time.

Background
The relationship between adolescents' digital device usage and its effects on mental health is a debated topic in research. While some studies suggest a negative correlation, others propose insignificant or no relationship. Some even argue for a positive association. Most research focuses on middle and late adolescence, leaving a gap in understanding its impact on early adolescence. Coinciding with increased digital device usage there has been an increasing number of adolescents who experience mental health issues, particularly among girls. The current study investigates the relationship between different screen time use and mental health for early adolescent girls and boys (10-13 years old). As gender is relevant both for what the adolescents use their time on digital devices, as well as mental health scores, we have a particular interest in investigating the relationship when we control for gender.
Methods
The study uses a sample from the Ungdata pluss study, comprising 5312 participants from primary school's final years (5th-7th grade), with an equal gender distribution and grade representation. We measured screen time after school for four activities (ranging from 0 to 4 hours or more): online video watching, computer/video games, mobile games, and social media. We used the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire's emotional symptoms subscale as a mental health measure. Regular participation in organized activities was also considered.
Results
Using multiple regression, we found our model explained a significant, but small, proportion of the variance in our mental health variable (12 %). Watching videos (B = .12, p < .001), playing computer/video games (B = .08, p < .001) as well as being on social media (B = .11, p < .001) were all significant digital screen time predictors, but playing mobile phone games were not significant (B = .04, p = .07). However, the strongest predictor in our model was gender, where girls on average scored 1.5 higher on emotional symptoms compared to boys. Being a part of organized leisure activities on a regular basis was the next strongest predictor in our model, where participants answering no to this question on average reporting 0.45 higher on emotional symptoms.
Conclusions
Our results show that most types of screen time use after school measured in our study, were significantly associated with mental health among young adolescents, where more time was associated with worse mental health. However, the associations were small which is in line with a lot of research on the topic. This could be interpreted as public health efforts should be directed at other factors in the life of adolescents than screen time use if one wants to promote mental health.