For
adolescents, the more time spent on electronic screens the greater the
likelihood of insomnia and shorter sleep duration, which in turn are linked to
a higher incidence of depressive symptoms. Those were the findings of a new study
by researchers at Stony Brook University, Pennsylvania State University, and
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Higher
rates of depressive symptoms among teens may be partially explained through the
ubiquitous use of screen-based activities, which can interfere with
high-quality restorative sleep,” Stella Xian Li, a postdoctoral associate at Stony
Brook.
Parents,
health-care professionals, and educators should consider instructing adolescents
about the effects of screen time and regulating device use.
“We’re
very interested to see whether the adverse influences of social media and
screen use on sleep and mental health persist during the transition to
adulthood,” said Lauren Hale, a professor of family, population, and preventive
medicine at Stony Brook who also collaborated on the study.
The
researchers analyzed data from surveys of more than 2,800 teens, about evenly
divided between males and females. Respondents reported how many hours they
spent daily on gaming, social messaging, TV/movies, and web surfing. Gaming was
found to have a stronger link to depressive symptoms than messaging activity.
