Esther van Sluijs
This is a high-quality study that brings together evidence from nearly 3 million young people across the globe. It shows a relationship between overall screen time and some developmental and mental health outcomes.
It cannot draw robust conclusions about specific types of screen use, like social media use or gaming, as there was not enough data to study this. We should therefore be cautious in interpreting these results in the context of young people’s current screen use habits.
Most of the data contributing to these conclusions comes from cross-sectional studies, where screen use and the developmental or mental health outcome are measured at the same time. This means that it cannot say much about whether higher screen use leads to poorer outcomes.
Research is urgently needed to understand the role of different types of screen use in the development of young people’s developmental and mental health outcomes over time to support policy making in this area.