Added screen time linked to more depression in adolescents, study finds

Increased use of social media and computers and longer television viewing times are linked to higher rates of depressive symptoms in adolescents, but playing video games does not increase depression, a Canadian study1 has found.

“To our knowledge, this study is the first to use developmental data from a large sample of adolescents to examine the association between four types of screen time and depression,” said the study authors, led by Elroy Boers, postdoctoral researcher at the department of psychiatry, University of Montreal, Canada.

The researchers added, “The most important finding was that increased social media and television …