Hold on, take a moment. How often do you find yourself on your phone today? Is social media impacting your mental health negatively? We ask this frequently, but should we genuinely be concerned about screen time?

Numerous studies examine screen time, many revealing associations between screen use and an array of health issues, including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, obesity, diabetes, and even suicidal thoughts. The implications seem dire.

However, I have a question. Are screens themselves the root cause of these issues, or is it that poor health leads to more screen time, or could an unidentified third factor be affecting both?

Most studies merely display correlations between screen time and various health outcomes and thus are unable to establish causation. Pinpointing the true impact of screen time is a much more intricate task.

To clarify these relationships, researchers perform meta-analyses employing advanced statistical methods to unify hundreds of robust studies, which helps reduce the perceived dangers.

I have a particular interest in one meta-analysis. Conducted in 2019, researchers Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski, then from the University of Oxford, evaluated a vast dataset of teenage surveys, allowing them to measure the effects of over 20,000 different factors on mental health.

Upon analyzing the data, they determined that only 0.4 percent of adolescent well-being is tied to screen use, revealing a level of negative impact similar to eating potatoes. In contrast, being bullied was linked to more than four times this negative effect, while sufficient sleep and a nutritious breakfast yielded significantly more positive outcomes.

So, is screen time acceptable? Again, let’s not rush to conclusions. Although this research looks at the relationship between screen time and mental health within a broader context, these findings still represent merely correlations. Human lives are complex, making it challenging to derive clear causal connections from messy data.

A helpful approach might involve reconsidering what screen time truly means. Activities like watching TV, browsing social media, gaming, reading e-books, and listening to science journalists discussing screen time all require looking at a screen, but can we assume they all exert the same influence on our health?

Many studies fail to adopt a nuanced perspective on this topic, simply tallying screen time. To complicate matters further, it’s widely known that this information is often self-reported, leading to inaccuracies. (Let’s be honest; we’ve all embellished the truth about our screen usage.)

Focusing solely on social media usage unveils further complexity. Engaging in political debates until the early hours on X while messaging friends via WhatsApp both qualify as social media activity, yet do they yield identical outcomes? The forthcoming meta-analysis will be published in a 2024 issue of SSM – mental health. Their findings indicate a slight positive correlation between happiness and using social media for communication or having a broad social media network, along with a minor negative correlation between social comparison and problematic social media practices, often referred to as social media “addiction.” None of these insights are particularly unexpected.

So where does this leave us? Given the potential risks involved, adopting a precautionary approach, especially regarding children, could be wise. Governments in the UK and Australia have implemented measures to significantly reduce screen time or to restrict specific technologies, such as social media.

Yet, there’s also the concern that imposing such limits could mean missing out on the valuable benefits screen time offers, such as access to information, social interactions, and entertainment. Data suggests that, on average, a range of factors indicates that the positive and negative effects of screens are relatively minor at the population level. However, that doesn’t mean some individuals don’t suffer more severe consequences, the so-called problematic users mentioned earlier, and we need to delve deeper to support them.

In light of all this, how concerned should you be about screen time? The answer is nuanced and continues to evolve with ongoing research. If you notice screens significantly affecting your life, altering your habits or seeking professional advice may prove beneficial. For most of us, however, the concern over screen use should not rank high on our lists of worries, nor should it dominate headlines.