Tag: depression

Children spending 4+ hours on screens face 61% higher depression risk

A new Nature Portfolio study reveals that excessive screen time in children is associated with significantly detrimental mental health outcomes across several disorders: ADHD, anxiety, behavioural problems and even depression.

According to clinicians from Flow Neuroscience, a company behind the first FDA-approved non-drug, non-invasive depression treatment, the issue is even bigger than the study reveals, as these children are often overprescribed antidepressants and have limited treatment alternatives due to their age.

Based on data from over 50,000 US children aged 6-17, the study revealed that excessive screen time, categorized as four or more hours per day, is associated with increased odds of mental health issues, raising the likelihood of depression by 61%, anxiety by 45%, behavioural or conduct problems by 24% and ADHD by 21%.

“What is most concerning about these results is the high probability of depression,” says Dr. Hannah Nearney, M.D., clinical psychiatrist and UK Medical Director at Flow Neuroscience. “While there are effective treatments for depression, treatment from a young age can present challenges that may further negatively impact a patient’s life, partly due to the side effects associated with antidepressant use. Unfortunately, non-drug alternatives are often limited to talking therapy, leaving a gap in the provision of services and exposing vulnerable children to increased risk.”

According to the study, physical activity emerges as the most influential protective factor between screen time and mental health problems, accounting for up to 39% of that relationship.

In comparison, irregular bedtimes are culpable for up to 23,9%, and short sleep duration explains around 7,24% of the relationship between screen time and mental health issues.

“What’s most important is that we now know the main determinants and protective factors regarding a range of mental health issues in children. The odds can be significantly reduced with adjustments in behaviours such as physical activity, and expanding the tools we can use to combat these illnesses,” highlighted Dr. Nearney.

The data from the study also indicated that this problem will escalate, as nearly one in every three children spends too much of their time in front of screens, suggesting the behaviour is normalized.

Meeting guidelines for physical activity (which is more than 60 minutes per day) is already low, with only one out of five children achieving this standard. And just one out of four children maintains a consistent weekday bedtime routine.

Given the limitations and risks associated with prescribing SSRIs to children, including a small but measurable increase in suicidality, there is a growing need to explore alternative, non-pharmacological treatments.

In this context, the first FDA-approved non-drug treatment, based on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is expected to become available in the US later this year. However, it is not approved for children under 18.

“Due to long waiting times, not enough attention is given to children and adolescents with mental health problems such as depression. Too often, they’re pushed into the trial-and-error pathways with antidepressants, even at a young age. We hope that such tools as brain stimulation will become available for these young people too, but what we can do in the meantime is to follow the suggestion of studies like the latter one, and not only avoid screen time, but also regulate our sleep schedules, add physical activity to children’s daily lives, and explore other similar options,” highlighted Dr. Nearney.

Even though currently, children don’t have non-drug, at-home, FDA-approved tools for depression treatment, an increasing amount of research supports that such technologies as tDCS are safe for pediatric use.

In the meantime, this Nature study reframes youth mental health as largely a preventable behavioural challenge and shows that many risks stem from modifiable habits like screen use, physical activity, and sleep.

New Online Safety Monitor Provides Recommendations to make the Online World Safer for Children and Young People

The first Online Safety Monitor was launched today at an online safety conference hosted by the Children’s Rights Alliance. The conference featured addresses from Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan and David D’Arcy, Digital Services Act Officer for Ireland at the European Commission office in Dublin. At a crunch point with new regulation of online platforms, the Online Safety Monitor provides a baseline analysis of the protections in place and the areas where children in Ireland remain vulnerable online.

“If laws and regulations fail to keep pace with the digital world, it is children and young people who pay the price. Failing to have adequate protections online creates space for predators to hide,” said Noeline Blackwell, Online Safety Coordinator with the Children’s Rights Alliance.

The Online Safety Monitor marks a unique and comprehensive analysis of the current state of children’s online rights; outlining key recommendations across three thematic areas in a single document and laying the groundwork for ongoing monitoring as these rights continue to evolve.

The Online Safety Monitor calls on the Government to:

  • Establish an effective and accessible Public Individual Complaints Mechanism where complaints made by children or involving a child are given priority

 

  • Strengthen oversight of platform compliance with the Digital Services Act to ensure accountability mechanisms are effective and child-centred, and include safety-by-design, transparency, privacy and algorithms

 

  • Lead reform of EU Laws that combat the production, hosting, access and use of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and ensure these laws properly address grooming, encryption, detection and secure storage of both new and existing CSAM

 

  • Introduce targeted initiatives to raise awareness and increase understanding of online harms to children, focusing on child sexual abuse, CSAM, grooming, and sexual exploitation.

Ms. Blackwell continued:

“As we launch the Online Safety Monitor today, several platforms are under investigations in several jurisdictions because of the harms that occurred on their sites. We cannot trust platforms to decide and design their own safety rules for children. These platforms are inherently risky in their set-up, favouring profit over protection. While there have been significant strides in recent years to end this era of self-regulation, there are gaps that ultimately put children at risk.

In Ireland, there is huge public appetite for the Government to stand up to big tech and they have made a start. We have a new law, the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, a dedicated Online Safety Commissioner and the introduction of legally binding Online Safety Codes. However, children are still being subjected to unnecessary levels of online harm.

The Online Safety Codes offer the first real chance to ensure there are significant consequences for platforms doing too little to safeguard children but in their current form, they give too much scope to platforms to determine their own safety standards. The recommender algorithms these companies designed that feed children harmful content are not included. On top of that, children and young people are still waiting for an accessible individual complaints mechanism that they can turn to when they do experience harms online. Leaving children and their families lost in a maze of complex and inconsistent reporting processes for every site they engage with.”

The Online Safety Monitor places a particular focus on the growing threat of online Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), calling for national and EU action to crackdown on the proliferation of this material.

Ms Blackwell concluded:

“The horrifying reality of an unregulated internet is children are left exposed online to the worst crimes and content you can imagine. Last year, it was estimated that over 300 million children globally were victims of online sexual exploitation. That is 10 cases every second. We have reached a grim milestone, and yet, EU regulation to address this has stalled.

Predators hide behind blind spots that current laws fail to acknowledge sufficiently, and online platforms ignore entirely, and all the while the industry profits rise. Reports of child sexual abuse material in Ireland have skyrocketed in recent years, with Hotline.ie receiving over 29,000 reports in 2023 – the highest number in its history. What should be enjoyable activities, such as chatting with friends online or playing video games, can open the door to some of the worst offences.

Online predators are skilled at identifying young internet users and are ready to exploit them, leading to children being exposed to, or in many cases, sharing their own, explicit content. Just a few minutes online at the wrong time, can have lasting impacts on children and young people beyond the screen including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and struggles with trust and self-esteem.

Despite occurring behind a screen, this is not a victimless crime, and it is not one that will disappear with a power off button. It is essential that our new Government make this an absolute priority and push for stronger EU laws and more effective ways to detect, remove, and prevent this content which has irreversible effects on countless children every minute.

There would be outrage if harms online happened offline, in our communities. Our government must step up to ensure our regulation is as robust and child-centred as possible, and that are significant penalties for platforms if they fail to comply. The online world is being shaped by digital technologies that are developing at a rapid rate. We cannot afford to wait and see what may happen if we don’t take action immediately.”

  • The Online Safety Monitor is available here.