Addictive Screen Use Trajectories and Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health in US Youths.
Increasing addictive social media use nearly doubled risk of suicidal behaviors in youths
Addictive Screen Use Trajectories and Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health in US Youths.
IMPORTANCE: Increasing child and adolescent use of social media, video games, and mobile phones has raised concerns about potential links to youth mental health problems.
To identify trajectories of addictive use of social media, mobile phones, and video games and to examine their associations with suicidal behaviors and ideation and mental health outcomes among youths.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Cohort study analyzing data from baseline through year 4 follow-up in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (2016-2022), with population-based samples from 21 US sites.
increasing addictive social media use nearly doubled the risk of suicidal behaviors
The analytic sample (n = 4285) had a mean age of 10.0 (SD, 0.6) years; 47.9% were female; and 9.9% were Black, 19.4% Hispanic, and 58.7% White.
Latent class linear mixed models identified 3 addictive use trajectories for social media and mobile phones and 2 for video games.
High addictive use trajectories for all screen types were associated with suicide-related outcomes (eg, high-peaking addictive use of social media had a risk ratio of 2.39 [95% CI, 1.66-3.43] for suicidal behaviors).
High or increasing trajectories of addictive use of social media, mobile phones, or video games were common in early adolescents.
Both high and increasing addictive screen use trajectories were associated with suicidal behaviors and ideation and worse mental health.