Written evidence submitted by Christopher J. Ferguson, Ph.D.,
Department of Psychology, Stetson University (SMH0154)

I am writing in reference to the current inquiry on the use of screens and social media on children and youth.  I would like to highlight several pieces of recent research I’ve been involved with.  In particular, I am concerned that evidence is poor to link screens and social media to mental health issues in children, and we may be seeing a repeat of past “moral panics” over technology that do little to help children’s welfare.

As I noted, in general, I feel that evidence linking screens, including social media, to children’s mental health is very poor.  Much of this is because of a failure to communicate the difference between “statistical significance” and “effect size” when discussing research in the social sciences.  Put simply, particularly with large samples, it is possible for some studies to achieve “statistical significance” but report effects that are so small or trivial that they would have little actual impact on children in the real world.  Even if it were possible to eliminate children’s use of screens (and reducing screen time has historically proven to be a kind of Golden Fleece), the benefit for children would negligible.  In one recent study, scholars claimed that social media use correlated with suicidal thoughts, but an examination of the same dataset revealed that other mundane factors like eating potatoes or wearing glasses had about the same level of correlation.  Unfortunately, when it comes to technology, we must be wary of exaggerated, scary claims based on weak data.

In one study I recently conducted with a large, representative sample of thousands of children in the US state of Florida, screen use including television and computers was a poor predictor of mental health or behavioral issues in children.  First, it was apparent that considerable use of screens, up to 6 hours a day, was perfectly normal and not associated with any problem behavior.  Above 6 hours a day, screen use was still not associated with risky driving, substance abuse, risky sex or eating disorders.  However, very tiny correlations were observed with depression, behavioral problems and reduced academic grades for these extreme users.  Yet, these correlations were so small (with screen use accounting for 1% or less of the variance in these outcomes) as to be trivial in impact even for kids who use screens more than 6 hours a day.  Thus, it is clear that, if we are serious about improving children’s welfare, focusing on screens is not particularly worth our time.

In another large sample of several hundred young adults, my colleagues and I examined the impact of social media use on mental health, suicidality, empathy, social anxiety and loneliness.  Contrary to many news headlines, we failed to find any impact of social media use on these outcomes.  It does not appear that time spent on social media is involved with creating mental health problems with young people.  However, we did find that certain behaviors online (including what we called “vaguebooking”…a tendency to make vaguely alarming comments on social media) can serve as a red flag for individuals with potential problems such as suicidality.  Thus, it appears it is not time spent on social media that is important, but what one does on social media.

At this juncture, we know that, historically, society is commonly faced with moral panics regarding the supposedly deleterious impact of technology, particularly on youth.  However, few of these scares have ever materialized into real problems for kids.  It appears that we are in yet another cycle of false panics over technology.  Focusing too much on these issues is likely to do more harm than good to the degree they cause unnecessarily conflicts between parents and youth and distract society from real factors contributing to mental welfare in children.

I would be happy to discuss my research with the committee or discuss my thoughts on other studies by other scholars as well.

April 2018

References:

Berryman, C., Ferguson, C. J., & Negy, C.  (in press). Social media use and mental health among young adults. Psychiatric Quarterly.

Ferguson, C.J.  (in press).  Everything in moderation: Moderate use of screens unassociated with child behavior problems.  Psychiatric Quarterly.