Screen Time May Be To Blame For Your Teen's ADHD

LOS ANGELES, CA — A study confirming what parents everywhere have long suspected found that teenagers who spend a lot of time glued to digital devices are twice as likely to show symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

The study by USC tracked 2,600 teenagers for two years, studying the mental health effects of using digital platforms such as social media, streaming video, text messaging, music downloading and online chatrooms. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study concluded that teens who spend hours on their phones are more likely to develop ADHD. According to its authors, the study stands out from previous research that linked TV and video games to the disorder.

"What's new is that previous studies on this topic were done many years ago, when social media, mobile phones, tablets and mobile apps didn't exist," said Adam Leventhal, professor of preventive medicine and psychology and director of the USC Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory at the Keck School of Medicine. "New, mobile technologies can provide fast, high-intensity stimulation accessible all day, which has increased digital media exposure far beyond what's been studied before."

USC scientists started with 4,100 eligible students aged 15 and 16, because adolescence marks a moment for ADHD onset and unfettered access to digital media. The students came from 10 Los Angeles County schools, representing a mixed demographic and socioeconomic status. By whittling out students who already had ADHD symptoms, the scientists ended up with 2,587 participants. the scientists' goal was to star with a clean slate to focus on occurrence of new symptoms over the two-year study.

The researchers asked students how frequently they used 14 popular digital media platforms and sorted the frequency into three categories: no use, medium use and high use. The students were monitored every six months between 2014 and 2016 to determine if digital media use in 10th grade was associated with ADHD symptoms tracked through 12th grade.

The study found that 9.5 percent of the 114 children who used half the digital media platforms frequently and 10.5 percent of the 51 kids who used all 14 platforms frequently showed new ADHD symptoms. By comparison, 4.6 percent of the 495 students who were not frequent users of any digital activity showed ADHD symptoms, which USC said is approximate to background rates of the disorder in the general population.

"We can't confirm causation from the study, but this was a statistically significant association," Leventhal said. "We can say with confidence that teens who were exposed to higher levels of digital media were significantly more likely to develop ADHD symptoms in the future."

He added, "This study raises concern whether the proliferation of high-performance digital media technologies may be putting a new generation of youth at risk for ADHD."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: Shutterstock