TOPLINE

Greater exposure to screen-based media was associated with lower academic achievement, poorer language development, as well as more emotional, peer, and behavioral problems among children and adolescents.

METHODOLOGY

• Researchers conducted a quantitative umbrella review of 23 meta-analyses involving more than 2.8 million children and adolescents aged 18 years or younger across 64 countries.
• Exposure measures captured the duration of screen use per day in minutes or hours across device types, such as television, smartphones, video games, and social media.
• Outcomes included academic functioning, cognitive skills, socioemotional development, and mental health symptoms.
• Data were extracted for the number of primary studies and participants in individual meta-analysis, age of the child, geographic location, methods of measurement, study design, and year of publication.
• Effect sizes were converted to Pearson correlation coefficients (r) for pooled analysis; a maximum quality score was attained by 11 of the 23 meta-analyses.

TAKEAWAY

• Greater exposure to screen time was associated with lower academic achievement (r, -0.15; 95% CI, -0.23 to -0.07; three meta-analyses) and language development (r, -0.13; 95% CI, -0.17 to -0.09; four meta-analyses).
• No clear association was observed between screen time and mathematics, science, or reading, based on three meta-analyses.
• Screen use was positively associated with internalizing behavior (such as depression and anxiety), for both general screen use (r, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.07-0.13; seven meta-analyses) and social media use (r, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.06-0.12; nine meta-analyses); screen use was also linked to increased externalizing behavior, such as aggression or hyperactivity (r, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.08-0.14; five meta-analyses).
• Screen exposure was also positively associated with emotional problems (r, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.08-0.50; three meta-analyses) and peer problems (r, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.04-0.49; four meta-analyses). Heterogeneity was high or very high for these outcomes.

IN PRACTICE

"[T]he findings suggest that screen use may represent one potentially modifiable factor associated with children's well-being across multiple domains," the researchers wrote. "[T]he present study provides timely and integrated evidence to support prioritizing screen discussions in pediatric practice and policy actions to manage children's overall digital and social media use," they added.

SOURCE

The study was led by Elizabeth Al-Jbouri, PhD, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was published online on September 28 in JAMA Pediatrics.

LIMITATIONS

Data harmonization in this umbrella review concentrated on the type of screen exposure and duration; other factors relevant to development, such as content, features, context, and usage behavior, were not reported consistently. Most of the data were correlational, which limited causal inference. Only variables consistently measured across all studies were analyzed, thereby limiting the exploration of certain key moderators.

DISCLOSURES

The project was funded through a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to an author, who also reported receiving advisory board fees outside the submitted work and editorial board membership for JAMA Pediatrics. Two authors reported receiving funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, one for postdoctoral support and the other for research support for the project. One author disclosed serving as an expert witness in social media litigation unrelated to this work, and another disclosed receiving personal fees from the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and grants from various sources outside the submitted work.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.