Educational Resources & Tech Tools 08/17/2020

• Effects of screentime on the health and well-being of children and adolescents: a systematic review of reviews

  tags: screen time distance learning health

  • Only Hoare et al  ²⁰ reported on associations with anxiety, and found moderate evidence for a positive association between screentime duration and severity of anxiety symptoms.
  • adolescents using screens in a moderate way showed the lowest prevalence of depressive symptoms.
  • HRQOL as a formal measured construct was examined by Wu et al, ²² who reported consistent evidence that greater screentime was associated with lower measured HRQOL in 11/13 cross-sectional and 4/4 longitudinal studies. A meta-analysis of 2 studies found that ≥2–2.5 hours/day of screentime was associated with significantly lower HRQOL (pooled mean difference in HRQOL score 2.71 (95% CI 1.59 to 3.38) points) than those with <2–2.5 hours/day.

  • There is moderately strong evidence for an association between screentime and depressive symptoms. This association is for overall screentime but there is very limited evidence from only one review for an association with social media screentime. There is moderate evidence for a dose-response effect, with weak evidence for a threshold of ≥2 hours daily screentime for the association with depressive symptoms.

    There is moderate evidence for an association of screentime with lower HRQOL, with weak evidence for a threshold of ≥2 hours daily screentime.

  • There is weak evidence that screentime is associated with poor sleep outcomes including delay in sleep onset, reduced total sleep time and daytime tiredness.
  • There was moderately strong evidence for an association between screentime and depressive symptoms, although evidence for social media screentime and depression was weak.
  • Evidence that screentime was associated with poorer quality of life was moderate,
  • We found no convincing evidence of health benefits from screentime. Yet some argue strongly that digital media have potential significant health, social and cognitive benefits and that harms are overstated.

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