Jane Feinmann , 2025-06-20 13:56:00
Children who develop addictive use of digital technology have up to twice the risk of developing suicidal behaviour within four years compared with those who may spend longer on their phones but don’t develop addictive behaviour, a study has found.1
The research involved regular screening over four years for addictive symptoms, including compulsive use, difficulty in disengaging, and distress when not given access, of 4285 US adolescents who were 10 years old at the start of the study. It is the first to “show that addictive screen use, not total screen time, is linked to suicidal ideation and behaviour and mental health problems in US teens,” said lead author Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical School.
The results, published in JAMA, showed that nearly a third of participants had an increasingly addictive use trajectory for social media or mobile phones, which started at age 11. More than four out of 10 (41%) experienced a high addictive use trajectory for video games. The study found that high addictive use for …
