Addictive use of social media, not total time, associated with youth mental health

(Press-News.org) NEW YORK, NY (June 18, 2025)--Addictive use of social media, video games, or mobile phones—but not total screen time—is associated with worse mental health among preteens, a new study by researchers at Columbia and Cornell universities has found.  

The study, published June 18 in JAMA, examined the social media use of nearly 4,300 children, starting at age 8, and how use changed over the next four years.  

Addictive use of screens—excessive use that interfered with schoolwork, home responsibilities, or other activities—was common, and use patterns varied by screen type and over time. For mobile phones, about half of the children reported high addictive use from the start of the study that remained high through early adolescence, and about 25% developed increasingly addictive use as they aged. For social media, approximately 40% of children had high or increasingly addictive use. Unlike social media and mobile phones, video game use followed only two trajectories—high and low—without a distinct “increasing” group over time. 

Both high and increasingly addictive screen use were associated with worse mental health (e.g. anxiety, depression, or aggression) and suicidal behaviors and thoughts.  

“These kids experience a craving for such use that they find it hard to curtail. Parents who notice these problems should have their kids evaluated for this addictive use and then seek professional help for kids with an addiction,” says psychiatrist J. John Mann, the Paul Janssen Professor of Translational Neuroscience in Psychiatry and Radiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute and one of the study’s senior leaders. 

“While national surveys and previous studies have documented rising screen use, our study is the first to map longitudinal trajectories of addictive use specifically, offering new insights into when and for whom risks emerge. Policy efforts should move away from generic limits on screen time and instead focus on identifying and addressing addictive patterns of screen use,” says Yunyu Xiao, PhD, the first and lead author, assistant professor of population health science and psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine.  

Children entering adolescence also should be assessed repeatedly for addictive use. “If you do not follow kids over time, you would miss this substantial group that shifts from low risk to higher risk,” Mann says. 

Background 

Increasing use of social media, video games, and mobile phones among children and teenagers has raised concerns that excessive use may be contributing to a rise in mental health problems among young people.  

Most research has focused on total screen time, rather than the nature of screen time or how that use may change over time. 

Study details 

The new study—the first to characterize addictive use trajectories for social media, mobile phones, and video games among children—looked at children in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.  

The researchers analyzed data collected over four years on the youths’ mental health; use of social media, mobile phones, and video games; and their agreement with various statements about screen use (e.g. “I play video games so I can forget about my problems,” and “I feel the need to use social media apps more and more.”)  

Based on the participants’ agreement with such statements, the researchers identified several addictive use patterns and examined the relationship between these addictive patterns and mental health. 

Screen use and mental health 

Overall, about 5% of the nearly 4,300 study participants exhibited suicidal behaviors (from preparatory actions to suicide attempts) during the study’s fourth year, and this was the outcome used to evaluate the impact of addictive screen use or the total time of screen use. 

For social media and mobile phones, children with high or increasingly addictive use patterns had a two to three times greater risk of suicidal behaviors and suicidal ideation compared to children with a low addictive use pattern. 

Total screen time was not associated with suicide-related or mental health outcomes.   

Next steps 

This study indicates that interventions that focus on addictive screen use may hold more promise as a prevention approach and do not support prevention focusing on total screen time. 

“Now that we know that an addictive use pattern is so important, we need to develop intervention strategies and test them in controlled clinical trials,” says Mann, who adds that it’s not known if screen access needs to be eliminated or just restricted. “We know from studies of addiction management that partial access can quickly reinforce the addiction.” 

More information 

The study, “Addictive Screen Use Trajectories and Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health in US Youths,” was published June 18 in JAMA. 

J. John Mann, MD, PhD, is also director of the Division of Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and co-director of the Columbia Center for Prevention and Treatment of Depression. 

All authors: Yunyu Xiao (Weill Cornell Medicine), Yuan Meng (Weill Cornell Medicine), Timothy T. Brown (University of California, Berkeley), Katherine M. Keyes (Columbia), and J. John Mann (Columbia). 

This study was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (RF1MH134649), American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (YIG-2-133-22), Google, and the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD), a program of the National Institutes of Health (1OT2OD032581-02-259). 

J. John Mann reports receipt of royalties for commercial use of the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale from the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene and the Columbia Pathways App from Columbia University.  

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