In contrast to popular believe, screen use has been found to contribute only very modestly to Adolescent Mental Health, only 0.4% to be exact. This is the same percentage as for instance regularly eating potatoes.

In comparison, smoking marijuana or being bullied account for 2.7 and 4.3 times as much as screen time, whereas activities as eating breakfast and getting enough sleep are way more important.

These results were obtained following analyses of data from three large-scale representative datasets from the US and UK, including 300,000 individuals surveyed between 2007 and 2016. These findings are important for parents and policy makers, researchers say.

Read the full story: University of Oxford (via Eurekalert)
Scientific publication: Nature Human Behaviour