Immediate and long-term health risks of excessive screen-based media use

Project Information

SCREENS

Grant agreement ID: 716657

DOI

10.3030/716657

Project closed

EC signature date 23 January 2017

Start date 1 February 2017

End date 31 January 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 500 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 500 000,00

Coordinated by

SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - SCREENS (Immediate and long-term health risks of excessive screen-based media use)

Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Screen-based media devices are ubiquitous in the lives of children and adults worldwide. With the media industry developing increasingly attractive products, screen media usage among young people and adults continues to rise. There is a debate surrounding the potential risk of high screen media use on the mental and physical health of children and adults. Rigorous research into the effects of screen media use is essential.

Previous studies have suggested that digital screen exposure may negatively impact sleep and physical activity in adults and children. However, randomized controlled trials in free-living settings are needed to confirm the impact of habitual screen media use on sleep, physical activity, and physiological stress.

The SCREENS project aims to investigate the effects of screen media use on health outcomes. The project involves a randomized controlled trial, the SCREENS trial, assessing the short-term efficacy of limiting recreational screen media use on physical activity, sleep, and physiological stress in parents and their 6-14-year-old children. The project also aims to develop and validate new instruments to assess screen-based media use and characterize the screen media environment in families.

We expect the project to advance research within the field of screen media use and health, providing rigorous evidence on how screen media use impacts sleep and physical activity in real-life settings among children and adults. The project will also contribute new knowledge on the long-term effects of screen media use on children's physical fitness, adiposity, glucose metabolism, and psychological well-being.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We successfully completed a pilot trial, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach to participant recruitment, intervention implementation, and outcome assessments. Based on pilot experiences, adjustments were made to the definitive SCREENS trial, which was carried out successfully. In the full trial, we found that limiting digital screen use in families with children increased children's physical activity, while limiting adults' digital use had no causal effect on their activity patterns. Unexpectedly, we found no evidence that limiting screen use affected children's sleep duration or quality. We also discovered that adults experienced improvements in mental well-being and mood when limiting digital screen use during leisure time.

We developed new methodologies to assess digital screen use, including technological methodologies for objective assessment in free-living settings and a software package for data quality control, processing, analysis, and summarization. We also developed a parent- and self-reported questionnaire to characterize digital screen use behaviors and the digital environment in families.

Using these methodologies, we provided up-to-date data on children's screen use, prevalence of problematic screen use, recreational screen use of parents, the screen media environment, and social disparities across screen use factors. We found associations between parents' screen media habits, attitudes, household rules, and their children's recreational screen use. Parental smartphone addiction was consistently associated with more behavioral problems in their children.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The SCREENS trial represents a novel approach to investigating potential causal effects of digital screen use on health and behavior in children and adults. Previous studies have been limited by observational designs or artificial lab-based settings, resulting in a low-quality evidence base. The SCREENS trial demonstrates that an experimental approach to addressing causal questions can be successful, offering higher-quality evidence.

Another major achievement was the development of a methodological platform to objectively assess digital screen use. This platform allows for the objective measurement of digital screen use over the long term in free-living environments. The development of this methodology is essential for obtaining unbiased measurements of screen use and advancing research on this topic. By providing an objective system to assess digital screen use, our project has contributed to the development of standardized methods for measuring and analyzing this behavior, which will help researchers to better design future observational and experimental research to study the impact of digital technology on human health and well-being.

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