Differential Relationships of Child Anxiety and Depression to Child Report and Parent Report of Electronic Media Use

Abstract

Child depression and anxiety have been associated with electronic media use, but the comorbidity between the two has rarely been accounted for in analyses. We examined both child and parent reports of electronic media use in relation to parent-reported child depression and anxiety. Using survey and interview data collected for 9- to 11-year-olds from the 21-site adolescent brain cognitive development study, we conducted generalized linear mixed models. Our results demonstrated that electronic media use was more strongly associated with depression than anxiety, and that accounting for depression significantly reduced the relationship between electronic media use and anxiety. Different categories of electronic media showed differential relationships to anxiety and depression, with video gaming and video chatting related to anxiety, but video watching related to depression. These findings provide important data to ground theories of the mechanisms that contribute to these associations.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10578-019-00892-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Screen time and early adolescent mental health, academic, and social outcomes in 9- and 10- year old children: Utilizing the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ℠ (ABCD) Study

“…We replicated their findings closely, which suggests that the discrepancy in our results primarily arises from the differences in the sample as it doubled in size. Overall, both the current study and the previous [ 11 ] find only weak associations of screen time with internalizing problems in the baseline ABCD sample. It is possible that because internalizing disorders typically develop throughout childhood and adolescence [ 31 , 32 ], 9- and 10- year old children are simply not displaying immediately noticeable internalizing symptoms.…”

“…The lack of significant relationships between screen time and internalizing disorder symptoms (i.e., depression and anxiety) was surprising and does not align with prior findings by researchers who also used the ABCD study to examine screen time as a predictor variable. To examine the discrepancy, we conducted a replication of their study [ 11 ], using the early release data of 4528 participants, which is less than half the sample size used in the current study. We replicated their findings closely, which suggests that the discrepancy in our results primarily arises from the differences in the sample as it doubled in size.…”

“…Previous literature links increased screen time to a number of negative outcomes, including poor mental health and worse behavioral problems [ 9 ]; internalizing problems during adolescence have been linked with impaired development of autonomy, identity, morality, and social responsibility [ 10 ]. One study thus far has examined the relationship between screen time and mental health in the context of anxiety and depression in 4528 participants from an early data release of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study), reporting that, when controlling for participant age, sex, BMI, family income, race, and physical activity, screen time was positively associated with anxiety and depression [ 11 ]. The authors found that child report of weekday electronic media use and both child and parent report of weekend electronic media use were significantly associated with anxiety, and both child and parent report of both weekend and weekday electronic media use were significantly associated with depression.…”

Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies in Adolescent Recreational Screen Time Reporting During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

“…18 However, the relationship between parent and adolescent measures as well as between these measures and the true amount of screen time is unclear. 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 Further investigation of adolescent-reported screen time as a valid measure and comparing it to parent-reported would allow for a more nuanced understanding of adolescent screen time usage and may also elucidate parental awareness of their child's screen time. Some reports have found evidence of discordance between adolescent and parent reports of adolescent screen time usage, suggesting that adolescent self-reported screen time is a better predictor of actual screen time.…”

Adolescent civic engagement: Lessons from Black Lives Matter

“…The majority of quantitative studies on engagement with BLM demonstrations include parent reports about their children or adults’ (18+ years old) accounts of their own experiences. However, beginning in early adolescence, youth are less likely to share their activities and emotions with parents, and as a result there tends to be a discrepancy between parent and youth report of behavior, including media use ( 10 ) and emotions ( 11 ).…”