Yesterday, we released our latest Podcast, How Screens Trap Teens in Depression. It features Jean Twenge, PhD, a highly regarded psychologist and researcher known for her critical work on the impact of screen time on today’s youth.
Our conversation explored the relationship between digital technology use, specifically social media and gaming, and teen mental health trends.
And most importantly, it debunks many myths around teens and mental health. I highly recommend listening to this 30-minute episode when you can. (And if you like to “podfast” as I do, and about 29% of all podcast listeners, then it will take you less than 30 minutes 😀.)
I'm sharing in this blog a snippet of my conversation with Twenge related to boys, depression, and video gaming.
You can listen to the full episode here: Apple Podcasts // Spotify // YouTube // Castbox // YouTube
Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
Learn more about our Screen-Free Sleep campaign at the website!
Our movie made for parents and educators of younger kids
Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Delaney: What have you found overall about gaming and mental health?
Jean: Well, in the big data sets that I've worked with, the heaviest gamers are not in good mental health. There's a big data set in the UK, and then the one that I work with in the US of teens. And those are nice because they're really huge sample sizes, and that's what you want for the data to be as reliable as possible.
Then, you're not getting anomalous results from small sample sizes, especially when you're breaking things down by how many hours you're gaming. If you're looking at the top 10 percent of the sample, who are the heaviest gamers, say, if you only have 200 people, then you get variation that could throw things off pretty quickly.
So it's nice to have these big data sets with thousands and thousands of teens. And yeah, there's still a link to depression and unhappiness for gaming. It's just in some data sets, especially those from a few years ago. That link is not as strong as it is for the same number of hours of social media use.
Delaney: It's the heavy users, five hours or more of gaming, that you really start to see the correlation.
Jean: In particular, it tends to be a fairly linear like dose-response curve, but yeah, the highest levels are the five hours a day and more. That's pretty much always when you see the worst outcomes.
Delaney: And I think one thing that gets lost in all of this, like we've been talking about, is boys' mental health worsening.
Jean: Yeah, and in some of the data sets, increases in depressive symptoms, unhappiness, and loneliness have been larger for girls and boys, but the NSDUH study for clinical level depression, it's doubled for boys.
Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
Learn more about our Screen-Free Sleep campaign at the website!
Our movie made for parents and educators of younger kids
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel! We add new videos regularly and you'll find over 100 videos covering parenting advice, guidance, podcasts, movie clips and more. Here's our most recent:
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Yesterday, we released our latest Podcast, How Screens Trap Teens in Depression. It features Jean Twenge, PhD, a highly regarded psychologist and researcher known for her critical work on the impact of screen time on today’s youth.
Our conversation explored the relationship between digital technology use, specifically social media and gaming, and teen mental health trends.
And most importantly, it debunks many myths around teens and mental health. I highly recommend listening to this 30-minute episode when you can. (And if you like to “podfast” as I do, and about 29% of all podcast listeners, then it will take you less than 30 minutes 😀.)
I'm sharing in this blog a snippet of my conversation with Twenge related to boys, depression, and video gaming.
You can listen to the full episode here: Apple Podcasts // Spotify // YouTube // Castbox // YouTube
Delaney: What have you found overall about gaming and mental health?
Jean: Well, in the big data sets that I've worked with, the heaviest gamers are not in good mental health. There's a big data set in the UK, and then the one that I work with in the US of teens. And those are nice because they're really huge sample sizes, and that's what you want for the data to be as reliable as possible.
Then, you're not getting anomalous results from small sample sizes, especially when you're breaking things down by how many hours you're gaming. If you're looking at the top 10 percent of the sample, who are the heaviest gamers, say, if you only have 200 people, then you get variation that could throw things off pretty quickly.
So it's nice to have these big data sets with thousands and thousands of teens. And yeah, there's still a link to depression and unhappiness for gaming. It's just in some data sets, especially those from a few years ago. That link is not as strong as it is for the same number of hours of social media use.
Delaney: It's the heavy users, five hours or more of gaming, that you really start to see the correlation.
Jean: In particular, it tends to be a fairly linear like dose-response curve, but yeah, the highest levels are the five hours a day and more. That's pretty much always when you see the worst outcomes.
Delaney: And I think one thing that gets lost in all of this, like we've been talking about, is boys' mental health worsening.
Jean: Yeah, and in some of the data sets, increases in depressive symptoms, unhappiness, and loneliness have been larger for girls and boys, but the NSDUH study for clinical level depression, it's doubled for boys.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel! We add new videos regularly and you'll find over 100 videos covering parenting advice, guidance, podcasts, movie clips and more. Here's our most recent:
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Yesterday, we released our latest Podcast, How Screens Trap Teens in Depression. It features Jean Twenge, PhD, a highly regarded psychologist and researcher known for her critical work on the impact of screen time on today’s youth.
Our conversation explored the relationship between digital technology use, specifically social media and gaming, and teen mental health trends.
And most importantly, it debunks many myths around teens and mental health. I highly recommend listening to this 30-minute episode when you can. (And if you like to “podfast” as I do, and about 29% of all podcast listeners, then it will take you less than 30 minutes 😀.)
I'm sharing in this blog a snippet of my conversation with Twenge related to boys, depression, and video gaming.
You can listen to the full episode here: Apple Podcasts // Spotify // YouTube // Castbox // YouTube
Many adults keep their phones by the bed — it feels harmless, even necessary. But what if that habit is quietly affecting our sleep and the example we set for our kids? In this week’s blog, Dr. Ruston shares two key things every parent should know about sleeping next to a phone, and how small nighttime tech changes can make a big difference for the whole family.
READ MORE >
From Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto to violence and gunfire in movies and shows, aggression is a constant backdrop in boys’ media diets. And with various influencers and online personalities framing success through the lens of strength, competition, dominance and winning, boys are being handed a narrow script for masculinity. As parents, one of the most important things we can do is offer a counterweight. We can help boys strengthen empathy, compassion, and respect as core traits of masculinity, so they have a broader, healthier vision of who they can become.
READ MORE >
Last week we introduced you to our Screen-Free Sleep campaign! Since then, we’ve been flooded with emails and calls, and most are asking the same question: How can we get this spreading in our school? Today’s blog has the answers.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
