Are Screens So Bad After All?
Over the past decade, pediatricians have led the charge against screens. Or that’s what it often feels like. As advocates of child health and wellness, it’s our job – literally – to figure out what’s good for kids, what’s bad for them, and what sits in between in the big foggy grey zone of we don’t know.
For many years, we have watched as certain physical and emotional issues mushroomed in parallel with screen time: things that were once rare in pediatrics have become unsurprising; some are even now commonplace. I’m talking about everything from carpal tunnel syndrome (thanks to keyboarding and gaming) to erectile dysfunction (that one is thanks to porn) to anxiety and depression (largely blamed on social media). The data connecting these various issues to screen use is rapidly evolving, but even in its early stages it seemed reliable enough that screen counseling became a part of the routine check-up visit. And by counseling, most of us said Do as little of it as you can, not before bed, and not naked.
Some of the very best science isn’t the new cutting-edge stuff, but rather the studies that dive deep into existing data to make sure they measure what they claim to or the ones that replicate a classic experiment to make sure the results still hold. And so, hot off the lab bench, we now know that some of what we once blamed on screens may represent unfair finger pointing. In a nutshell, social media may not be the cause of increasing anxiety and depression. In some cases, it may even provide an antidote.
I have a handful of researcher-friends who will be chuckling when they read this post, because they have been preaching the benefits of social media and challenging its critics for a long time. They will also be smiling because, as researchers, they knew the study needed to be done to prove they were right. Maybe. There’s always more data to collect.
It has become common wisdom that too much time spent on smartphones and social media is responsible for a recent spike in anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, especially among teenagers.But a growing number academic researchers have produced studies that suggest the common wisdom is wrong.The latest research… READ MORE
