“While most existing research has focused on total screen time, emerging evidence suggests that addictive screen use may be a more salient risk factor for suicidality and mental health in youths,” wrote Yunyu Xiao, Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine, and colleagues. “However, addictive use trajectories among youths have not been well characterized, and how they may relate to suicide-related and mental health outcomes remains largely unknown.”
Xiao and colleagues analyzed data from 4,285 youth enrolled in the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. The youth, who were 9 to 10 years old at baseline, completed self-reported surveys on addictive use of social media, mobile phones, and video games (frequency of compulsive use, difficulty disengaging from use, and distress levels when not using) at follow-up years two through four. At year four, children and parents completed assessments of suicidal ideation and behaviors, and parents reported their child’s internalizing (e.g., anxiety, depression) and externalizing (ego, aggression, rule-breaking) symptoms.
The researchers found that nearly half of the participants had high addictive use scores for mobile phones throughout the follow-up, and more than 40% had a high addictive use trajectory for video games. Only 10% of participants had a high addictive use trajectory for social media, but another 31% had addictive use scores that increased over time; 25% of participants also reported an increasing addictive use trajectory for mobile phones.
For both social media and mobile phones, the high and increasing addictive use trajectories were associated with two to three times greater risk of suicidal behaviors and suicidal ideation at year four compared with the low addictive use trajectory. High and increasing addictive use trajectories for social media were further associated with higher internalizing and externalizing symptom scores.
For video games, the high addictive use trajectory was associated with greater risks of suicidal behaviors and suicidal ideation as well as higher internalizing symptoms scores compared with the low addictive use trajectory.
The results underscore “the potential importance of repeated assessment of addictive use of social media and mobile phones among children entering adolescence,” the researchers wrote. “In contrast, video game addictive use followed two trajectories, high and low, which were stable over time, potentially allowing earlier identification of risk without repeated assessment.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Ask Young Patients About Social Media Use.”
