Screen time and mental illness: Is it always worse?

more Screen time Always bad for teenagers?

Parents are often concerned that a lot of screen time (for example, the time he spends looking at Social media Applications may affect smartphones or screens during games or TV while watching series or movies) negatively over the mental health of their children. There is already extensive psychological research that supports this idea. For example, a modern integration of the adolescent analyzes that contain data from more than 1.9 million people showed a statistically significant connection between increasing the time it spends on social media and depression ((Sanders and his colleagues, 2024). But is it truly easy, or can there be other not specified factors, which are decisive to understand the relationship between screen time and mental health?

A new study on the time you spend on social media, games, television and mental health problems

A new study published October 2^{The second abbreviation}2025, in the scientific magazine Psychiatry research Data has been analyzed from more than 23,000 Norwegian teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16, focusing on screen time for social media, games, television and mental health problems (Free and his colleagues, 2025).

The following mental health problems were considered:

More importantly, scientists who conducted the study entitled “Apivers and Hereditary Relationships between Teenage Health and the Time Spent on Social Media, Games and Television”, also analyzed the genetic data from the people participating in the study. Genes It is a factor that is usually not analyzed in studies on screen time and mental health, but it may be very relevant, as many mental health disorders are severely affected by genetic changes between people.

What do scientists discover?

In general, he was 3,829 participants Psychiatry Diagnosis, while others did not. For all types of screen time (TV, games and social media), there were clear connections with mental illness:

1. Teenagers, who watched TV from three to four hours a day or more chance of a psychological diagnosis compared to teenagers who watched the least TV.
2. For games, teenagers who spent less time in games had a lower chance of developing psychological diagnosis than other teenagers. On the contrary, teenagers who played video games for three to four hours a day or more have a much higher chance to make a psychological diagnosis compared to adolescents who spent less time in games.
3. To use social media, teenagers who spent most of the time on social media, as well as those who spent less time on social media had a significant opportunity to obtain a psychological diagnosis compared to other teenagers.

In addition to official psychological diagnoses, scientists have also considered self -reported symptoms by their participants in their analyzes. It was found that spending three to four hours or more in watching screens over one day was associated with the degrees of the highest symptoms.

In recent analyzes, scientists used the genetic data collected from the participants to determine their individual genetic risks of various mental health disorders. It is interesting that the risk degrees of depression, ADHDand unite Spectrum disorder, nervous loss showed great connections with the screen time. This indicates that the genetic risks of these disorders can have an effect on the screen time. Scientists who used advanced statistical models to know this, which can be attached between screen time and mental health disorders to genetic effects.

Ready meals: looking at genetics

When scientists find a relationship between the use of social media and mental health problems, it is usually difficult to know the direction of influence. On the one hand, a lot of social media may lead to Feeling lonely And the loss of friends in real life, this can lead to mental problems. On the other hand, a person with mental health problems may have problems in a rich presence Social life Then he spends more time on social media because they are boring Or you want to find useful advice.

The results of the study show that both ideas may be very simplified and that the genetic responsibility for the disorder may also lead to the responsibility for increasing the screen time. Moreover, the study found an interesting result that teenagers who have the lowest time on social media also have a growing risk of mental health problems. This may reflect that some teenagers who suffer from problems affecting social performance, such as autism spectrum disorders, may face problems in communicating with others even on social media. Important discovery deserves more research!