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Kids’ mental health suffers from this kind of digital media exposure

"Media multitasking specifically was mostly correlated with negative mental health."

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By Tom Campbell via SWNS

Children's mental health suffers from being exposed to different types of digital media simultaneously, warns a new study.

Media multitasking - such as listening to music while surfing the web - is more damaging for kids than spending hours just playing video games, say scientists.

The amount of time people spend consuming digital media like music, videos and games has dramatically increased over the past few decades.

On average, children ages 8-12 in the United States spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens, and teens spend up to 9 hours, according to the AACAP.

This has raised concerns among parents who worry their kids’ obsession with digital media could be damaging for their mental health and wellbeing.

While most studies have looked at the amount of time people spend behind their screens, few have examined different types of media and content.

Now, European scientists have found that while kids consume more and more digital media as they get older, this isn't always bad for their mental wellbeing.

Portrait of two Afro American brothers playing video games at home. Lifestyle and technology concept.
Media multitasking correlated with negative mental health, playing video games was associated with faster responses and better mental health (Shutterstock)

Co-author Dr. Pedro Cardoso-Leite at the University of Luxembourg said: "We
observe that children consume large amounts of media and media multitask substantially.

"Partial correlation analyses show that media multitasking specifically was mostly correlated with negative mental health, while playing video games was associated with faster responding and better mental health."

Data was collected from children aged between eight and 12 at a public primary school on the outskirts of Geneva in Switzerland.

A media questionnaire was completed by teachers and parents of the 118 children who had volunteered to take part in the study.

These covered four broad categories, including digital technology use, attentional problems, mental health and sleep, as well as grades, motivation and beliefs.

The children were then asked to perform a series of cognitive tasks in order to measure their cognitive abilities, reaction times and attention span.

In one of the tasks, a digit between one and nine flashed across a screen every 1.15 millisecond.

The children were asked to tap the screen whenever they saw the number appear, except when it was a three.

Both overall media consumption and multi-tasking increased as the children got older, the researchers found.

At the age of 12, they spent on average eight hours and 14 minutes a day on digital devices compared to just four hours and 28 minutes at the age of eight.

Children who multi-tasked, consuming different kinds of digital media together, were more likely to suffer from mental health issues, the researchers found.

Those who played video games on the other hand, were less likely to suffer the same fate.

Cardoso-Leite said: "It is not uncommon to read that time in front of screens should be limited.

"The present paper indicates that such aggregate measures of media consumption are not sufficient and documents that the type of media used as well as how they are consumed both matter."

There was no difference in multitasking scores or how much media was consumed overall between boys and girls.

Only when it came to video games, did boys spend more time per day than girls, the researchers found.

Cardoso-Leite said: “Our results confirm the well-established observation that as children age, they consume more media.

“These analyses reveal that media multitasking more than video gaming and total time on media was associated with adverse psychological outcomes and that media multitasking should therefore be considered more intensively in future studies.”

The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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