Human connection has taken on some different meanings over the last decade, perhaps magnified over the last year as we’ve largely been in ” all in this together, but separately” mode.Ĭarolyn: And for many of us, staying connected has become a way of life. With Carolyn Pennington, I’m Chris DeFrancesco. This is the UConn Health Pulse, a podcast to help you get to know UConn Health, and its people, a little better, and hopefully leave you with some health information you’ll find useful. Jayesh Kamath, Carolyn Pennington, Chris DeFrancesco, May 2021) TranscriptĬhris: Can a teen’s seemingly innocent use of social media bring unintended consequences like social deficiencies or even depression and anxiety? Today on the Pulse we’ll talk to an expert who’s been looking into this. Jayesh Kamath from UConn Health’s mood and anxiety disorders program joins Carolyn and Chris to discuss his research in the area, including how some preliminary findings could help inform the evolution of the approach treating anxiety and depression. What effect could all that screen time have on these younger, still developing brains? Dr. All rights reserved.Smartphone use is a big part of our lives, and the pandemic has magnified that, particularly for teens and adolescents. Our results highlight both screen-based activities and sleep behaviors as potential intervention targets to reduce depressive symptoms among adolescents.ĭepressive symptoms Gaming Insomnia symptoms Screen time Sleep duration Social messaging.Ĭopyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. For gaming, the three sleep variables acted as partial mediators in the model, accounting for 38.5% of the association between gaming and depressive symptoms. For social messaging, web surfing and TV/movie watching, the three sleep variables fully mediated the positive association between screen time and depressive symptoms.
Structural Equation Modeling analyses revealed that the association between screen time and depressive symptoms is partially or fully mediated by sleep. We constructed a multiple mediation model to elucidate the associations between age 15 screen time, sleep and depressive symptoms, while adjusting for age 9 depressive symptoms. Adolescents completed surveys regarding sleep duration and insomnia symptoms, typical daily duration of four screen activities (social messaging, web surfing, TV/movie watching, and gaming), and depressive symptoms. adolescents (mean age = 15.53, SD = 0.73, 51.8% male) in the age 15 follow-up of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. We further investigated whether sleep characteristics (ie, insomnia symptoms and sleep duration) mediate these associations.ĭata come from 2865 U.S. This study examined the associations between four types of screen-based activities and depressive symptoms among adolescents. 6 Program in Public Health, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University, USA.5 Institute for Research on Poverty and School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.4 Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, USA College of Nursing, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.3 School of Aging Studies, University of South Florida, USA.Electronic address: 2 Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, USA Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA Sleep Health Institute, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, USA. 1 Program in Public Health, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University, USA.