News
More Screen Time, Less Happiness
There is an increasing suspicion that all is not well for our youth, and one of the most popular explanations is that excessive “screen time” is to blame - the attention young people devote to their phones, tablets and laptops.
The “screen time” hypothesis, advanced by researchers at San Diego State University, is that electronic devices and excessive time spent online may have caused problems for young people’s psychological health.
Less sport and fewer meetings with peers correlated with lower wellbeing, as did less time reading print media (newspapers) and, surprisingly, less time doing homework. Additionally, more TV watching and more electronic communication both correlated with lower wellbeing.
Adolescents who spent a very small amount of time on digital devices – a couple of hours – had the highest wellbeing, even more than those who never used them. However, higher doses of screen-time were clearly associated with lower happiness – those spending 10-19 hours per week on their devices were 41 per cent more likely to be unhappy than lower-frequency users, and those who used them 40 hours a week or more (one in ten of teenagers) were twice as likely to be unhappy.
The study was published in the journal Emotion.
The “screen time” hypothesis, advanced by researchers at San Diego State University, is that electronic devices and excessive time spent online may have caused problems for young people’s psychological health.
Less sport and fewer meetings with peers correlated with lower wellbeing, as did less time reading print media (newspapers) and, surprisingly, less time doing homework. Additionally, more TV watching and more electronic communication both correlated with lower wellbeing.
Adolescents who spent a very small amount of time on digital devices – a couple of hours – had the highest wellbeing, even more than those who never used them. However, higher doses of screen-time were clearly associated with lower happiness – those spending 10-19 hours per week on their devices were 41 per cent more likely to be unhappy than lower-frequency users, and those who used them 40 hours a week or more (one in ten of teenagers) were twice as likely to be unhappy.
The study was published in the journal Emotion.