Study Emphasizes Quality Over Quantity for Screen Time
New research reveals what we see online affects us more than length of exposure
It is what we are looking at, rather than how much time we are spending our time online that influences our health and wellbeing, according to a major new report.
The study, published in the journal World Psychiatry, is a comprehensive examination of the latest scientific evidence on screen time and mental health, carried out by an international research team.
The authors emphasise the importance of taking an individualised and multi-dimensional approach to how the Internet affects mental health, cognition and social functioning. Content that may be relatively harmless to some users may be damaging to a different demographic, such as the impact photos promoting unrealistic body shapes may have on people vulnerable to eating disorders or low self-esteem.
The report addresses a range of impacts that an increased online presence has on wellbeing, tackling issues such as ‘fear of missing out’, how behaviours and viewpoints are manipulated through social media, isolation, social comparisons, and the effects on the body such as increased sedentary behaviour.
Co-author Lee Smith, Professor of Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said:
“In the second scenario, there is an older adult spending the exact same four hours per day online, but instead using this time to foster new social relationships and access educational content, providing benefits for their wellbeing and even brain functioning. Here, we can see very different outcomes arise from the exact same amount of time spent online.”
This emerging evidence of how the online world can influence our social functioning and brain health can be used to begin developing more concrete guidelines and strategies for helping people to maximise the benefits, and minimise the risks, of their own individual ‘online lives’.
Senior Author, Dr Josh A. Firth from University of Leeds explained:
“While there is common sense in reducing our digital device usage to ensure time for healthy ‘real world’ activities, we are now able to describe how the consequences of our digital device usage are determined by things far beyond just time spent online.”
Professor Smith added: