Digital screens have become a permanent part of our lives, with children gaining access to them at an ever-earlier age \u2013 but is this increased screen time really impacting their health?<\/p>\n
The scientific evidence is more conflicting than you might expect: some studies on digital devices raise concerns, while others find no real link between screen time and mental or physical problems.<\/p>\n
In a new article published in the journal JAMA Network Open<\/em> , Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Imperial College London analysed data from a cohort of 3,786 children participating in the long-term Growing Up in Scotland study.<\/p>\n They examined how screen use outside of school at ages 5, 10, and 15 was associated with psychosocial development (covering emotional, behavioral, and social well-being).<\/p>\n Overall, the results obtained are encouraging and indicate that way<\/em> screen use matters more than the time spent interacting with devices.<\/p>\n \u00ab"No significant associations were found between screen use and developmental difficulties at ages 5 or 10, and an association with higher difficulties at age 15 was observed only with very intensive use of electronic games, but not other forms of screen use," the researchers wrote in their published paper.<\/p>\n \u00ab"Early intensive screen use was associated with greater difficulties at age 10, but this association did not persist at age 15.".<\/p>\n Screen time varied by age (McQuaid et al., JAMA Network Open<\/em> , 2026)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The researchers accounted for several other factors that could influence the results, including gender, race, ethnicity, household income, and cognitive test scores.<\/p>\n One of the most surprising findings was that 15-year-olds who used social media apps for more than an hour a day were less likely to score higher than average on their difficulty scores than those who did not. less<\/em> hours a day.<\/p>\n The authors suggest that social media and messaging apps can strengthen connections with friends and provide young people with greater support.<\/p>\n However, they also caution that teens with better social skills may simply use them more often, so the findings cannot prove their benefits.<\/p>\n \u00ab"Our findings suggest that public health recommendations that focus solely on limiting screen use, such as the World Health Organization's recommendation of 1 hour per day or less for children under 5 years of age, may not accurately reflect the complex relationship between screen time and psychosocial development," the researchers write.<\/p>\n The study also found that the percentage of time children spend playing games increases as they get older.<\/p>\n One possible avenue for further research is to examine the ways in which screens are used, which is likely to influence potential outcomes.<\/p>\n \u00ab"Future research areas include getting data on what children are actually doing on screen, who they are doing it with, and whether they are doing it alone," says education professor Victoria Whitington of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n \u00abFurthermore, it is important to examine what children do when they are not spending time on screens, and whether screen time is preventing them from participating in other areas, such as face-to-face verbal and physical interactions, and time spent outdoors in highly sensory environments that fully engage children\u2019s senses.\u00bb.<\/p>\n It's worth noting that the study period begins in 2009, just two years after the launch of the iPhone and a year before the first iPad. Phones and tablets are now more ubiquitous than ever, so more recent data may reveal a different picture.<\/p>\n However, the study shows that in this group of children, screen time alone was not consistently associated with poorer psychosocial development and appears to be just one of many ways children are influenced and impacted as they grow older.<\/p>\n \u00ab"The apparent correlations between screen use and negative outcomes are significantly weakened or disappear when relevant third factors are taken into account," says psychologist Pete Etchells of Bath Spa University in the UK, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n See also:<\/strong> Smartphone ownership at age 12 linked to these health problems in children.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00ab"This makes perfect sense given the role screens play in young people's lives\u2014screen use doesn't just happen on its own, but can influence and be influenced by various social and family factors.".<\/p>\n The results of the study were published in JAMA Network Open magazine<\/em> .<\/p>\n ScienceAlert articles are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans; they are never generated by artificial intelligence. 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