Maybe screen time isn't the problem for teens, says findings from a 3-year study

The study challenges the assumption of negative effects of teenagers spending too much time online. Screen time enhances digital skills.

The Pancake will go into sleep mode for a month or so as I prepare to move to a new city for the first time in four and a half decades,… except for maybe a brief update or comment, as below.

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Last month I addressed the concerns of parents and policy-makers with the impact of social media, in particular on children. I explained why the problem may be overstated and, moreover, how difficult it would be to regulate given First Amendment and parental rights.

The challenge of social media regulation

An overlay to social media use is the broader issue of screen time. The narrative is familiar: teenagers spend too much time online, and their well-being, academics, and social lives suffer as a result. However, a new dissertation by Gabriel Hales at Michigan State University addressed this concern through four studies, observing 653 students in early to late adolescence across 18 schools from 2019 to 2022, in addition to a broader sample of 5,825 adolescents spanning the year before and after COVID-19 lockdowns.

Its key finding is evidence that the harmful effects of screen time were inconsistent or null. Screen time is time spent online, which enhances digital skills.

Digital skills were strong positive contributors to achievement and aspirations across adolescence, while also mediating the relationship between online engagement and human capital both before and after pandemic lockdowns—especially among students with fast and reliable home access.

On the other hand, students who had “unreliable home connectivity and technology maintenance constraints, emerged as substantially larger predictors of academic decline.”

The author observed that

certain forms of digital engagement and online skillsets complement, rather than undermine, adolescent developmental competencies such as grit and self-efficacy, and participation in face-to-face structured social activities (e.g., organized sports, paid work and volunteering, adult-led school clubs), particularly when observed alongside face-toface peer and family interaction

Youth who are restricted in their screen time and unable to freely access and explore the Internet due to a lack of reliable connectivity are unable to develop key online skill sets and participate in today's digital world.

This study didn’t concern itself in particular with what the students did with their screen time, just what the outcome was of being online.

Another data point to consider.