Episode 19: Should we worry about screen time?

Do we worry too much about screen time?

The issue of screen use by children and teenagers is rarely out of the headlines, and institutions including the World Health Organization have recommended specific limits on screen time for the youngest age groups. But what does the science actually say about the effects of screen time?

To find out, our presenter Ella Rhodes talks to Dr Amy Orben, Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and winner of the 2019 BPS award for Outstanding Doctoral Research, who has explored the psychological effects of screen time in her research. 

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Episode credits:

Presented and produced by Ella Rhodes, journalist for The Psychologist, with help from the Research Digest and Psychologist teams.

Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler.

PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler; additional music by Ketsa.

Artwork by Tim Grimshaw.

Download this episode here.

Background resources for this episode:

Screen Time, Laptop Bans, and the Fears that Shape the Use of Technology for Learning, a paper by Dr Torrey Trust in the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, is free to access thanks to our sponsors Routledge Psychology.

The work by Amy Orben and her colleagues discussed in this episode includes:

• The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use
• Screens, Teens, and Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From Three Time-Use-Diary Studies
• How Much Is Too Much? Examining the Relationship Between Digital Screen Engagement and Psychosocial Functioning in a Confirmatory Cohort Study
• Social media's enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction

Here are the WHO guidelines on screen time mentioned at the beginning of the podcast.