Addictive Screen Use Tied to Suicidal Behaviors in Early Adolescence

FRIDAY, June 27, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Both high and increasing addictive screen use trajectories are associated with suicidal behaviors and worse mental health in early adolescence, according to a study published online June 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Yunyu Xiao, Ph.D., from Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian in New York City, and colleagues analyzed data from 4,285 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (2016 to 2022) to identify trajectories of addictive use of social media, mobile phones, and video games, and to examine their associations with suicidal behaviors and ideation and mental health outcomes among youths.

The researchers identified three addictive use trajectories for social media and mobile phones and two for video games. Beginning at age 11 years, nearly one-third of participants had an increasing addictive use trajectory for social media or mobile phones. Increasing addictive use trajectories were associated with higher risks of suicide-related outcomes, compared to low addictive use trajectories (risk ratio, 2.14 for suicidal behaviors) in adjusted models. For all screen types, high addictive use trajectories were associated with suicide-related outcomes (high-peaking addictive use of social media: risk ratio, 2.39 for suicidal behaviors). Compared to low addictive use trajectories, the high video game addictive use trajectory showed the largest relative difference in internalizing symptoms (T score difference, 2.03). There was no association for total screen time at baseline and outcomes.

“These findings suggest that focusing future research or interventions on addictive screen use might hold more promise than focusing on total screen time, which may unnecessarily involve low-risk youths,” the authors write.

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