(Photo By: Education Images/UIG via Getty Images)
Concerns continue rising about how much time we’re spending on our smartphones and the effects digital immersion is having on both who we are and what we’re becoming. A new study adds to the uneasiness, suggesting that heavy use of digital media via smartphones and other devices is significantly linked to more symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among teens over time.
Researchers monitored nearly 2,600 high school students, ages 15 and 16, over a two-year period and found that the heaviest users of digital media platforms were almost twice as likely to develop ADHD symptoms.
The students reported how frequently they used 14 platforms, including social media, texting and streaming video, and the researchers used their responses to establish three categories of use: no use; medium use and high use. Assessments from the students about their levels of multiple ADHD symptoms were monitored every six months between 2014 and 2016 (from 10th grade to 12th grade). The researchers chose students from several schools throughout Los Angeles County to include a variety of demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Students with a preexisting ADHD diagnosis were purposefully excluded from the study to provide as “clean a slate” as possible when evaluating changes in symptoms over time.
The results over the two-year period showed that the most infrequent users of the digital media platforms, about 500 students, had the lowest incidence of ADHD symptoms (4.6 %). In contrast, the most frequent users of the platforms, about 170 students, developed the highest incidence of symptoms (between 9.5% and 10.5%).
“We can't confirm causation from the study, but this was a statistically significant association,” said Adam Leventhal, professor of preventive medicine and psychology and director of the USC Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “We can say with confidence that teens who were exposed to higher levels of digital media were significantly more likely to develop ADHD symptoms in the future.”
The “causation” question is the question that makes studies like this challenging to translate. We don’t know if exposure to digital media is causing the problem, or if those prone to these disorders are driven to especially heavy use of digital media. A similar problem exists with studies showing that Facebook use is linked to lower well-being and greater feelings of loneliness – is Facebook causing those outcomes, or are lonelier people drawn to heavily using platforms like Facebook?
Earlier internet research may hold part of the answer. When the internet began displacing television as our distraction of choice, researchers wondered what traits may
