The relationship between screen-based behaviors and adolescent mental health: a phenotypic and genetic analysis

Abstract

AbstractObjectiveTechnological advances made screen devices readily available, with adolescents spending an increasing amount of time on screens. Despite rising concerns, evidence on the relationship between screen-based activities and adolescent mental health remains inconsistent.MethodUsing self-reports from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study and ICD-10 codes for mental illness from health registries, we estimated the odds of psychiatric diagnoses among adolescents across different levels of screen usage (n= 22,096). Additionally, we computed polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BP), major depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and alcohol use disorder (AUD) for adolescents without a history of mental illness and evaluated their association with time spent on screen-based activities.ResultsWe observed higher odds of psychiatric diagnoses among individuals with most time spent across all screen-based behaviors. However, the lowest social media usage was also associated with mental illness (OR 2.18, 95% CI: 1.80, 2.65), particularly with increased ASD occurrence. Minimum time spent on gaming was associated with lower odds of psychiatric diagnoses (OR 0.74, 95% CI: 0.65, 0.84). PRSADHDwas positively associated with time spent on social media and gaming, while PRSASDwas positively associated with gaming, but negatively – with social media usage. Additionally, social media usage was significantly associated with lower PRSSCZand PRSBP,but higher PRSAUD.ConclusionWe show that screen time behaviors are associated with mental illness among adolescents, which may partly reflect a shared genetic basis.