Talk:Digital media use and mental health

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Former featured articleDigital media use and mental health is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 6, 2019.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 13, 2019Articles for deletionNo consensus
June 6, 2019Good article nomineeListed
August 1, 2019Guild of Copy EditorsCopyedited
August 5, 2019Peer reviewReviewed
October 12, 2019Featured article candidatePromoted
December 30, 2023Featured article reviewDemoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 5, 2019.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that research into digital media use and mental health has found that females are more likely to be affected by problematic social media use while males are more likely to have gaming disorder?
Current status: Former featured article

Wiki Education assignment: Social Media

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 September 2024 and 9 November 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TenorioA2024 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Engaging Student.

— Assignment last updated by Ken2628 (talk) 17:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Digital Media Literacy

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 November 2024 and 16 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): COMWIKI250, James Giesen (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Reneehobbs (talk) 18:58, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New Text Under Social Media Use and Mental Health : Wiki Education Assignment

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I added a small paragraph introducing how mental health becomes so addicted to media use. This an introduction of what the next section of the article will be about. I also added a link under the title "Social Media and Mental Health". It is a blog Law and Bioscience blog from Stanford investigating the concern of media use among young children. COMWIKI250 (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Composition II Section 2

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2025 and 9 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Taegan6 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Hoppily, SJACKSON558.

— Assignment last updated by Matthewvetter (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Intro to Technical Writing

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 February 2025 and 10 March 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lizad25 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by MDJ61 (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2025 and 1 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Taryn777 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Taryn777 (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SP25 - Sect 202 - Thu

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2025 and 30 April 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dcaralza (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Dcaralza (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Updates made

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Hello! I am a student and am working on updating this article. I have included some information from recent studies that talk about media wellness and youth as well as college students. I also included some ways to promote healthy media usage and how to create a safe space online. Taegan6 (talk) 20:40, 5 April 2025 (UTC) Taegan6 (talk) 20:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Contemporary Moral Issues

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 March 2025 and 18 April 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maddiean23 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Maddiean23 (talk) 19:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great that your class is here to help improve the article. Maddiean23 I am not sure if you have started yet, but a quick tip to keep in mind- When editing, please do not use the article to summarize the results of systematic reviews in the article. While great sources as per Wikipedia's guideline for reliable sources in medicine (WO:MEDRS, we do not need to know the # if trials etc- best just to summarize the evidence and then people can read the citation to learn more. Also do not need to include the date and journal info (or authors) in the text- all of this can be found in the citation.JenOttawa (talk) 15:17, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to add information about KOSA

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Hi! I'm working on this article as part of a collegiate philosophy class, and have been doing some research that could be added to this article to improve it. Specifically, by adding information on the proposed Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to the "Public Sector" subsection of the "Mitigation" section. KOSA is a proposed bill aiming to protect children from online harm. It would require social media platforms to actively try to mitigate online harm (to minors in particular) by providing safeguards for children and parents to use and for their cooperation in independent audits. This bill is highly polarizing as some parties worry it could result in censorship, violate the first amendment, and/or limit minors' access to beneficial information and resources. I still want to include it because there isn't really information in the public sector section about efforts in the US. Maddiean23 (talk) 21:19, 13 April 2025 (UTC) [1][reply]

References

  1. ^ Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT (13 December 2023). "Text - S.1409 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Kids Online Safety Act". www.congress.gov. Retrieved 13 April 2025.

Wiki Education assignment: Seminar in Mass Communication Problems - Media Literacy

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2025 and 12 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Laleedaa (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by MooDengEnjoyer (talk) 18:01, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to share evidence on early screentime and risk of autism...

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Moving this content from the article to the talk page as I do not have the expertise in this field to ensure what is shared reflects expert consensus. Will flag at Wikipedia:MED as well to recruit other editors. Pasted from article:

A 2023 systematic review of 11 studies concluded that earlier and longer screen time exposure for children was associated with higher probability of a child "developing" autism.[1] A 2023 meta-analysis of 46 studies comprising 562,131 subjects that concluded that while screen time may be a developmental cause of autism in childhood, associations between autism and screen time were not statistically significant when accounting for publication bias.[2]

JenOttawa (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC) JenOttawa (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jen, I have some concerns about citing Cureus for controversial content.
@Oolong, are you willing to look into this? We really don't want something cherry-picked in this article, and it could easily be the case that autism causes an increased desire for screen time (i.e., getting the causation backwards), or that there could be a non-causative correlation (e.g., young coders, Star Wars superfans, etc.). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks so much WhatamIdoing and Oolong. Agreed re Cureus WAID.JenOttawa (talk) 23:21, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, extremely dodgy to assume the direction of causation the way the Cureus review seems to be.
It claims 'The strength of this review is that it includes longitudinal cohort studies' but as far as I can see at a glance, it only actually cites one longitudinal study - which reports 'Such findings supported our previous cross-sectional studies where toddlers and preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder were more likely to begin watching television at a younger age than typical controls.'
The Ophir et al review looks much more solid to me, and much more thorough; I support their conclusion that we just don't know!
In general, we need to be similarly wary of studies purporting to show harmful effects of screen time or digital media use, unless they bring in longitudinal data very carefully: there are plenty of reasons to believe that depressed, anxious and indeed autistic people are likely to spend more time online. I know that some studies have found the direction of causation to clearly point that way when they looked closely, but I couldn't cite them off the top of my head.
Here's psychologist Naomi Fisher writing about screen time; here's Andy Smith of Spectrum Gaming discussing how autistic people use games. I bring these up as things to bear in mind when evaluating possible sources on this. They are broadly supported by this quote from Ophir et al:
"Screen use may have both negative and positive outcomes, as described in previous studies.70,71 For example, social media use may have some benefits for children with ASD or ASD symptoms, owing to the engagement in interpersonal associations that typically occurs on these media.14 This observation replicates, to a certain extent, findings from a related meta-analysis that targeted the association between screen time and language skills.7" Oolong (talk) 09:28, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other than the children thing, changes to the Autism section would be my next biggest concern with recent changes. Prior to yesterday's edits,the autism section has a nice summary of how recent systematic reviews treat the link between ASD & screen time. Whereas afterwards, over half the Autism section is now about the link between Autism & Video game addiction which seems a relatively tangental aspect. More concerningly, the one remaining sentence on the link between ADS & screen time ( There is some evidence of increased digital media or screen time use in some people who have autism, however much of the research has been inconclusive ) seems to misrepresent even the sources left in the section on multiple levels. At least to my ear, the new wording seems to imply there is doubt about a correlation between high screen time & ASD. To be clear, there is absolutely no doubt about that. What's in doubt is whether there's a causative relationship.

I'm going to restore most of the original wording, though leaving out the Cureus source - I'm sure whatever editor Oolong decides there will be good. Lastly, while I've been critical on some recent changes, again it's most welcome to have a quality editor like Jen taking the time to improve the article. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:19, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for coming in to help with this article FeydHuxtable! I really really appreciate you going through my cuts and ensuring that I did not make mistakes.JenOttawa (talk) 12:55, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Sarfraz, Saba; Shlaghya, Gandhala; Narayana, Sri Harsha; Mushtaq, Ujala; Ameen, Basim Shaman; Nie, Chuhao; Nechi, Daniel; Mazhar, Iqra J.; Yasir, Mohamed; Franchini, Ana P. Arcia (2023). "Early Screen-Time Exposure and Its Association With Risk of Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review". Cureus. 15 (7). Springer Nature: e42292. doi:10.7759/cureus.42292. PMC 10442849. PMID 37614255.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  2. ^ Ophir, Yaakov; Rosenberg, Hananel; Tikochinski, Refael; Dalyot, Shani; Lipshits-Braziler, Yuliya (2023). "Screen Time and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis". JAMA Network Open. 6 (12). American Medical Association: e2346775. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.46775. PMC 10709772. PMID 38064216.

Concerns on pace of recent changes, and shift away from youth focus

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It's most welcome to see a quality editor like Jen arrive on this page, making useful improvements to the article's readability!

This said, the ten or so major edits yesterday seem to have reduced article size by about a third. The article has benefited from much editing over the years from well informed students, as well as attention from editor CKC themselves. It may be nice to pause for a bit to give them time to review the changes, before proceeding with further change at this kind of pace.

I'm especially concerned about this the change of the word people > children in the lede. This may seem a trivial concern, so please bear with me while I elaborate. When my buddy Almaty created this article in Jan 2019, the lede strongly emphasised the fact that concerns about Digital's impact on mental health largely pertain to children & Adolescents. The way this topic is covered in WP:RS is vastly more supportive for a focus on young people now than it was in 2019, so we ought not make changes in the opposite direction.

In 2019, little over half of the available studies into Digital & MH focussed on young people. Now over 99% are. It's not individual studies, but meta-analyses & systematic reviews too. As per this umbrella review Literature reviews on how social media use affects adolescent mental health have accumulated at an unprecedented rate

Similarly, at least in the West, there was almost no prohibition against Digital for young people back in 2019 - just a few parents banning it, which quite often is counter productive when done just for individual children, as any benefits can be offset by increased isolation from their still largely online local peer group.

But as of 2025, there's now been effective civil society action targeting digital use by children across the globe. 99.8% of English primary schools have a smartphone ban. In cases when the ban has been re-enforced with letters encouraging parents not to get their under 14 year olds, as happened in St. Albans , this has apparently had good outcomes. A good many countries have legislation going through the pipeline to ban social media for Kids at national level, most prominently Australia.

There's been no remotely similar efforts to curtail Digital use for adults. This is partly as adolescents are uniquely vulnerable to developing mental health conditions - about a half of those who make it through their teenage years with no MH incidents stay in good MH for life. The rapid rise in youth MH incidents since 2012 is not just a matter of incalculable suffering for millions of individuals, it's a matter of National interest for almost every country in the world. For example, here in UK the economic costs of the youth mental health crisis have been estimated as a staggering 1 trillion pounds.

So I'm going to restore the long standing 'children' wording in the lead, and suggest that while we should continue to cover the issue across the age groups, if anything the article could benefit from further focus on young people. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for noting this! I will definitely pause my efforts. It is great to have you here helping!JenOttawa (talk) 12:56, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all the work you've done! As a non-expert who just wanted to try to get this article back to featured status, I think you've done more than I have in doing so since getting the Associated psychiatric disorders section consistent with WP:MEDSAY has been something I really couldn't do because of paywalls and my non-expertise. I was the editor had expanded it with all of the meta-analyses and systematic reviews, and I apologize for the quality of the writing. I was just trying get more secondary sources per WP:MEDREF because there weren't very many before and to do so in a way that hopefully that somebody who knows more about the subject matter than I could trim it back. I wonder if at this point we could remove the tag (although since Tobiasi0 placed it, I'd want to give them an opportunity to leave a comment here). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:14, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for being so pleasant about this Jen - wish more folk could be like that when it comes to having different views on a high impact topic. I'd not see any more reason to pause now CKC has confirmed they're happy with the trimming. I may later add a few lines to the body re youth focus, if no one else does.
@ CKC, you're being very modest there, I thought your input was better than some with relevant post Doc degrees. Per the contradictory & inclusive nature of findings here, this is a most challenging topic to write about. I'd agree enoughs been done to remove the remaining tag, though as you say may be collegial to wait a few days in case Tobias wanted to chime in. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Should have added that I do agree with FeydHuxtable's concern about keeping the article with a focus on research about digital media use and mental health issues among adolescents and children since those age groups have been the research subjects for most of the research, and considering the societal implications if there is a causal relationship between use and mental health issues. Since I don't if you read the first two sections of the talk page, I suppose I should mention that I was planning on adding subsections to the Associated psychiatric disorders section with meta-analyses and systematic reviews on research about body image and eating disorders, loneliness, suicide and self-harm, as well as a section in a different part of the article on the evolutionary psychology research about the topic. (However, I don't know where I'd add the subsection on the last topic now since the "Other disciplines" section has since been removed.) If you have any suggestions about how to cover these topics, I'm more than willing to hear what you have to say. I could just list the reviews I found here on the talk page, and let you do the summary if you'd like. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:46, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: English 1302

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 May 2025 and 3 July 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Udon Noodle (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Udon Noodle (talk) 20:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:36, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for sharing. I participated in the vote.JenOttawa (talk) 20:33, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]