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How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time

Written by Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio and Eugenie Park | Published March 12, 2024

Most teens at least sometimes feel happy and peaceful when they don’t have their phone, but 44% say this makes them anxious. Half of parents say they have looked through their teen’s phone.

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Screen Time and Parent-Child Talk When Children Are Aged 12 to 36 Months

Written by Mary E. Brushe, PhD, Dandara G. Haag, PhD, Edward C. Melhuish, PhD, et al | Published March 4, 2024

Findings of this study support the notion of technoference for Australian families, whereby young children’s exposure to screen time is interfering with opportunities to talk and interact in their home environment. This finding has implications for interventions and supports aimed at promoting a language-rich home environment, with families needing support in understanding the potential association of screen time with opportunities for children and adults to talk and interact in their home environment.

"So standard it's not noteworthy" -- Teenage girls' experiences of harm online

Written by Internetmatters.org | Published March 1, 2024

The positive feelings girls experience online are often constrained by the fact that many experience harm online, such as harassment and exposure to undesirable and harmful content and contact. This is borne out by the fact 77% of girls aged 13-16 report online experiences that are harmful (or potentially harmful) – significantly more than all children (66%). There is a widely prevalent belief amongst girls that experiencing harms such as these is an intrinsic component of the digital space.

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Excessive social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated adolescent mental health challenges

Written by Emma G Duerden & Michaela Kent | Published January 18, 2024

During the COVID-19 pandemic, young people were drastically affected by the sudden shift to a digital world and the explosion of a reliance on screens. School closures, coupled with social isolation, led to dramatic increases in daily screen time use and exacerbated mental health challenges for many young people.

Early-Life Digital Media Experiences and Development of Atypical Sensory Processing

Written by Karen Frankel Heffler, MD; Binod Acharya, MS, MS; Keshab Subedi, MS, MSc; et al | Published January 8, 2024

Greater early-life digital media exposures may be associated with atypical sensory processing. Further research is needed to understand why early media exposure is associated with specific sensory-related behaviors, including those seen in autism spectrum disorder, and if minimizing screen media at a young age can improve subsequent sensory-related outcomes.

One in six school-aged children experiences cyberbullying, finds new WHO/Europe study

Written by Alina Cosma, Michal Molcho, William Pickett | Published January 4, 2024

The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, of more than 279,000 people aged 11, 13 and 15 years old in 2021/22, suggests the proportion of adolescents who reported being cyberbullied has increased since 2018, from 12% to 15% for boys and 13% to 16% for girls.

Types of On-Screen Content and Mental Health in Kindergarten Children

Written by Haiwa Wang, BS; Jin Zhao, MD, PhD; Zhangsheng Yu, PhD; et al | Published December 4, 2023

In this cohort study of 15 965 kindergarten children, screen exposure was consistently associated with risk for mental health problems, but the associations varied by content type. Specifically, under a given total screen time, children with a higher proportion of screen exposure to educational programs had a lower risk for mental health problems, whereas the non–child-directed programs were associated with a higher risk for such problems. Findings of this study suggest that both screen time and on-screen content matter for children’s mental health.

How Early Digital Experience Shapes Young Brains During 0-12 Years: A Scoping Review

Written by Dandan Wua, Xinyi Dong, Danqing Liu & Hui Li | Published November 16, 2023

This scoping review has achieved three major conclusions. First, digital experience does have positive and negative impacts on children’s brains, structurally and functionally. Second, digital experience could cause structural and functional changes in children’s frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, brain connectivity, and brain networks. And the most vulnerable area is the prefrontal cortex and its associated executive function. Third, digital experience has positive and negative impacts on children’s brain structure longitudinally.

Youth Perspectives on Online Safety, 2022: an Annual Report of Youth Attitudes and Experiences

Written by Caroline Neiswender, Amanda Goharian, Melissa Stroebel, et al. | Published November 15, 2023

New research from Thorn, a nonprofit that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse, found a notable increase in the sharing of self-generated child sexual abuse material (SG-CSAM) within offline romantic relationships. More than two in three minors (69%) who have shared their own SG-CSAM with someone they knew offline said it was with a boyfriend or girlfriend, up from just over half (54%) in 2021.

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CSS Teens & Screens 2023: Romance or Nomance?

Written by Rivas-Lara, S., Kotecha, H., Pham, B., & Uhls, Y.T. | Published October 25, 2023

The new story for this year is that adolescents are much more interested in watching stories featuring friendships and platonic relationships, what we are labeling “nomance.” After the pandemic years, it seems young people are craving these feel-good character relationships.

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