Screen time is associated with decreased psychological well-being.

Very interesting and by no means nearly even approaching the last word. From Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology. by Jean Twenge, M. Martin, Gabrielle N. Campbell, and W. Keith Emotion.

In nationally representative yearly surveys of United States 8th, 10th, and 12th graders 1991–2016 (N = 1.1 million), psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness) suddenly decreased after 2012. Adolescents who spent more time on electronic communication and screens (e.g., social media, the Internet, texting, gaming) and less time on nonscreen activities (e.g., in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, attending religious services) had lower psychological well-being. Adolescents spending a small amount of time on electronic communication were the happiest. Psychological well-being was lower in years when adolescents spent more time on screens and higher in years when they spent more time on nonscreen activities, with changes in activities generally preceding declines in well-being. Cyclical economic indicators such as unemployment were not significantly correlated with well-being, suggesting that the Great Recession was not the cause of the decrease in psychological well-being, which may instead be at least partially due to the rapid adoption of smartphones and the subsequent shift in adolescents’ time use.

Post-2007 (introduction of smart-phones in combination with the maturing of the internet, browsers, social media, etc.) has been a real-life experimentation of human/social/technology interaction with plenty of moving and evolving parts. We can recognize many of the tactical benefits and pitfalls but the strategic accounting is much more complex and the data is still rudimentary.

This is an indicative tidbit suggesting that there are perhaps more unintended consequences than we anticipated. There is a lot of ground yet to cover. They believe they have ruled out economic cycles as a causal element. But perhaps it is not screen-time versus non-screen time but instead active versus sedentary? Lots of variables to control, (perhaps it is loss of institutional trust, or decline in religious convictions?) but this is an interesting data point supporting a long present concern about the cognitive and emotional disruption arising from always connected, always on.