New Research Report Issues Screen Time Warning For Parents
Today I came across a another research report issuing a screen time warning for parents. There is already a number of reports that show video games are harming our kids. As well as reports that show a decrease in screen time is correlated with improved performance in school. This research report I came across this morning issues a new screen time warning for parents with respect to happiness.
This report studied nearly 1.1 million 8th, 10th, and 12th graders across the United States. The researchers were attempting to uncover the reasons behind a decline of the psychological well-being in youth (i.e. happiness, self-esteem, life satisfaction).
Screen Time Warning For Parents: 9 Hours of Screen time Per Week is The Max
What they found is nothing less than a startling screen time warning for parents. An article covering the study written by the British Psychological Society states:
They found that adolescents who spent a very small amount of time on digital devices – a couple of hours – had the highest wellbeing, even more than those who never used them. However, higher doses of screen-time were clearly associated with lower happiness – those spending 10-19 hours per week on their devices were 41 per cent more likely to be unhappy than lower-frequency users, and those who used them 40 hours a week or more (one in ten of teenagers) were twice as likely to be unhappy.
What’s more, the amount of screen time on digital devices has a indirect correlation with both an increase and decrease in happiness. This simply means: less screen time = more happiness and more screen time = less happiness. This fact is particularity unique. Screen time was the only identifiable activity with this indirect correlation.
As a parent who looks for this type of research all the time, these finding are not a surprise. This screen time warning is just another canary in the coal mine among others. Hopefully, one of these warnings actually breaks through to parents. From what I can see, none of them have yet.