A large review published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that heavier use of digital media, particularly social media, is consistently associated with poorer developmental outcomes in children and teenagers. While video games may offer a small boost to certain mental skills, the overall pattern in the data links greater digital media use with higher levels of depression, behavioural problems, and substance use.
Digital media now plays a major role in the daily lives of children and adolescents, with usage increasing steadily from early childhood through the teenage years. Much of the previous debate about screen time has relied on cross-sectional studies, which capture behaviour at a single moment and cannot determine whether digital media use causes problems or simply occurs alongside them. To address this issue, the new research focused exclusively on longitudinal studies, which follow the same individuals over time.
“The debate around children’s digital media use has been fierce, but most of the evidence fuelling it comes from studies that only capture a single snapshot in time — they can’t tell us whether screen time is actually causing problems, or just associated with them. We wanted to change that,”
said study author Sam Teague, a senior research fellow at James Cook University and head of the JCU Digital Wellbeing Group.
The researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 153 longitudinal studies published between 2000 and 2024. Together, these studies represented about 360,000 children and adolescents aged two to 19 from around the world. The team analysed how different forms of digital media use, including social media, video games, and other online activities such as messaging or general internet use, were linked to 26 aspects of development across social-emotional, cognitive, physical, and motor domains.
Across the studies, social media use was consistently associated with a range of social-emotional difficulties. Higher engagement was linked with greater levels of depression, anxiety, behavioural problems, self-injurious thoughts, and problematic internet use. It was also connected to lower academic achievement, weaker positive development, and poorer self-perception. In terms of physical health, higher social media use was associated with increased substance use, including alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis.
Video game use showed a more mixed pattern. Gaming was linked to greater aggression and externalising behaviours such as hostility or rule-breaking. At the same time, the analysis identified a small positive association between video game use and executive functioning, a set of mental skills that includes working memory, attention, and self-control.