Is screen time good or bad for my mental health? Blog written by Tania Taylor
Screen time is something relatively new. TVs only became a common item in a family home in the late 1960’s. Sixty years later and it’s not only television screens that are a common factor in our family homes. We have tablets, mobile phones, computers, laptops. Many of us even have gas and electric metres that have digital touch screens on them now too!
I remember once when my children were young. We had stopped in a local shop, and they had a lottery tv screen advertisement. Both of my children assumed the screen was broken because when they touched it with their fingertips, nothing happened! “Wow, how times have changed,” I remember thinking to myself.
Times really have changed, but is our amount of screen time increasing good or bad for us? First of all, that is a massive question in itself. There are so many variables when it comes to a piece of research like this.
What outcomes should we measure to determine if the effects of screen time are good or bad? Thinking about the content on the screen, isn’t that important in knowing whether there could be a positive or negative result from accessing it? On another note, what about measuring the reasons behind why someone is accessing screen time? Are they picking up a device because they are low in mood and want to cheer up? Or perhaps they are searching for a way to help them complete a particular task as part of an enjoyable hobby they partake in.
Despite all the variables listed above, ‘is too much screen time bad for us?’ is a common question. During lockdown, I remember so many people expressing guilt over the increasing number of hours children, teens, and adults were spending using screen time. Increasing screen time was seen as a bad thing. But was it increasing the screen time, or was it the reasons behind increasing screen time that brought up feelings of guilt? With so many people working from home and no childcare options, sometimes screen time was the only way for some parents to keep their jobs and keep putting food on the table.
When we review studies focusing on the number of hours of screen time usage and how increases or decreases in those hours impact our well-being, they will struggle to find a common starting point. Self-reporting measures of screen time usage tend to be severely under rated. Have you ever used a tracker on your phone that measures how much time you spend on different apps in a day or week? You might get a shock when you realise just how much time you spend idly scrolling through social media. Or perhaps it will be a pleasant surprise for you. Who knows. What you can do is test it out for yourself. Have a guess at how much screen time you used on your smart phone in the last 24 hours. Now go to your settings and take a look. If you’re unsure how, a quick search on google will tell you where the tracking is for your mobile device.
Trying to compare people who use screen time with people who don’t might be particularly difficult. Mainly because it’s likely that there would be multiple other differences in peoples lives that could impact on the results. When investigating differences, as much as possible researchers will try to minimise differences that aren’t related to what they are investigating. So, participants in two groups being compared will be of similar age, backgrounds, ethnicities, similar financial incomes, and sex.
If we attempted to compare people who have never accessed screen time to people who have, identifying two groups of people still being similar in earnings, where they live, and other demographics would be nye impossible. Particularly as many studies like to have as many participants as possible as this increases the likelihood that their results can be comparable to real world experiences.
So how can we study the effects of screen time if we can’t do it in the way above? Instead, studies look at what they refer to as baseline data. How much screen time did someone already access, and what happens if we significantly increase or decrease it? And how long do we study the impact of these changes to be able to notice any kind of difference in a person’s well-being? One study found marginal differences when looking at this. They found after one year teenagers who increased their screen time significantly over that year, said they didn’t feel as good as they had at the beginning of a study. On the flip side, the same study found that teenagers who reported feeling worse than at the beginning of the study, increased their screen time.
How valuable is that information though? Would you say it’s also important to consider the content of the screen time? The time of the day the screen time is accessed might be useful to know too. And what about the reason for accessing the screen time? Some research has shown that people self-reporting using screen time to socialise report both negative and positive effects. Would we say this is just like socialising in person? Sometimes its enjoyable, other times, if someone joins our group that we don’t gel with, maybe its far less enjoyable.
Many parents worry about their children playing video games. These days you’ll find they can interact with their friends both within the game and via ‘headsets.’ What is to say that partaking in such an activity is less beneficial than learning the guitar? Both activities involve learning something new, dexterity in the fingers. Perhaps the former also has the additional benefits of learning to problem solve and work together as a team. Maybe guitar playing involves that too, when learning is done in a group environment? One involves staring at a screen with lots of moving and changing stimuli, the other involves staring at pieces of paper with static musical notes. So, how can we decide if one activity is more beneficial than another?
I was telling my son about the research I was doing for this blog, and he said to me “FIFA has helped me with geography, I know so many flags and where countries are around the world now. So, it’s educational too.” Interesting. When I had the idea to write this blog, my thoughts were that too much screen time isn’t good for us. But I’ve found my views being challenged by the research and by questions I hadn’t ever asked myself before. I suppose screen time can be seen like anything else that may contribute to a healthy fulfilled lifestyle. Too much of one thing, may mean we neglect something else that is important to us. For example, too much cake, might mean we neglect to eat enough fibre. Too much screen time might mean we neglect to move our bodies and get physical exercise. Now though we have activities that involve screen time and movement. Virtual Reality headsets, Wii Fit.
In conclusion I don’t think the question should be ‘is too much screen time bad for us?’ Instead, we should be looking at how our screen time effects our well-being. If we notice every time we scroll through Facebook we are left feeling pleased at seeing our friends and family sharing their happiness, then repeating the activity is likely to not cause any detrimental effects. But if you find that you’re neglecting yourself or something else important because you are spending so much time accessing screen time, then perhaps it’s time to consider changing your routine up.
Change can feel really difficult and cause a lot of anxiety and resistance. If you need help with that, get in touch. You can find out more information about the services I offer here, and you can book a free initial consultation by phone with me here.
Willpower is one of the biggest factors that people cite as their reason for not changing unwanted behaviour. It is something that helps us motivate ourselves to make change but also to sustain those changes, preventing us from giving in to unwanted temptation. Whether that be exercising, changing our eating habits or anything else we may set our minds on achieving.
There have been lots of studies that demonstrate time and again that if you are the type of person who can delay gratification, you are more likely to achieve the goals you set in life. Take a look at the Marshmallow experiment for one of the original studies.
We may assume Willpower is always about resisting temptation but it’s also about following our dreams and desires that will help us to achieve our goals. When we can begin thinking about Willpower from the perspective that Willpower is about saying YES so that we can achieve those goals we had in mind, that small change in perception can help us to strengthen our own Willpower.
