September 28, 2026

expert reaction to umbrella review of studies looking at screen use and child and adolescent development

Scientists comment on an umbrella review of studies looking at child and adolescent development and screen use, as published in JAMA Pediatrics. 

From our friends at SMC Spain:

Tatiana Íñiguez Berrozpe, senior lecturer in Sociology and Vice-Dean of Information and Communication Technologies at the Faculty of Education, University of Zaragoza (Spain), said:

“This is a methodologically very sound article. It is a review of reviews that brings together 23 meta-analyses and compiles data from nearly three million children across 64 countries; the sample is therefore extremely large. It is pre-registered, assesses the quality of the studies it includes and, in a move that is rare but methodologically sound, excludes studies that appeared in multiple meta-analyses, thereby preventing the results from being inflated. Furthermore, the authors also report on data that did not prove to be significant, which lends transparency and scientific rigour to the study as a whole.

“However, the main findings confirm what research has been showing for years and which puts the current media and social moral panic surrounding the relationship between young people and screens into perspective: there is an association between screen time and poorer indicators of mental health and academic performance, but it is very small (around 1 per cent of the differences between one group of adolescents and another). This is not an insignificant finding, but it in no way supports the mantra that screens are the main cause of adolescent emotional distress. As we have pointed out in previous articles, screen use alone does not explain why a teenager is emotionally distressed or performs less well academically.

“Other caveats to bear in mind when reading the results are as follows: firstly, some striking findings, such as emotional problems or difficulties with peers, are based on very few studies and show significant variability between them. Their confidence intervals range from an almost negligible effect to a moderate one, so these are the least reliable estimates in the article, and they are the ones most likely to make headlines in the media, as is often the case. Secondly, the authors compare the magnitude of these effects with that of socio-economic status, and this comparison must be treated with caution, as studies on screen time typically do not use socio-economic status as a control variable to adjust their results. Moreover, as argued by some in contemporary educational sociology, we might consider that some of what is attributed to screen use may, in reality, be social inequality expressed through these devices.

“Perhaps the most novel aspect of the study lies in the distinctions it draws between different types of screen use. For example, the association between such use and psychological distress in children is stronger with mobile phones than with television or video games, and stronger with depressive symptoms than with social anxiety. Furthermore, this association is more pronounced in adolescents than in younger children.

“All of this delves into another issue that has been highlighted in recent research on the subject: it matters less how many hours devices are used for and more which device is used, for what purpose, with whom, and at what stage of development. Recommendations based solely on total hours lump together very different types of use, as playing online with friends or doing homework is not the same as passively scrolling for hours through a feed designed to hold one’s attention.

“Another limitation worth noting is that, as is often the case with such studies, most of them are cross-sectional and do not allow for the establishment of causality, only association.

“Finally, it is worth highlighting another issue commonly noted in studies with a more sociological focus than the one at hand, although this study clearly demonstrates it: the most significant factor in the association between children and screen time is the time spent scrolling. That is to say, the problem is not screen use in itself, but rather what I stop doing when I am engrossed in it, such as sleeping, taking part in physical activity, or socialising with family and friends.”


From our friends at SMC Spain:

 Víctor González Calatayud, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Teaching and School Organisation at the University of Murcia (Spain), said:

“In the field of education and technology use—which is my area of expertise—I have been able to analyse the results in detail. Thus, when they speak of a negative relationship [between screen use] and academic performance, this must be interpreted with considerable caution. The findings are highly varied, making it difficult to establish a causal relationship. Furthermore, from an educational research perspective, this study suffers from the same shortcoming as other primary studies: the purpose of use, the content or the level of interaction with screens are aspects that are not usually taken into account (the study makes a slight distinction between types of screens, but not in terms of how they are used). Other studies that have taken these factors into account have found that such a relationship does not exist. It is therefore important to make a clear distinction between correlation and causation.

“By this I mean to highlight that whilst these results are important, they must be treated with caution (as the authors themselves state in their limitations) and that further analysis of contextual factors not taken into account is required”.

Prof Esther van Sluijs, Professor of Behavioural Epidemiology, Loughborough University, said:

“This is a high-quality study that brings together evidence from nearly 3 million young people across the globe. It shows a relationship between overall screen time and some developmental and mental health outcomes.

“It cannot draw robust conclusions about specific types of screen use, like social media use or gaming, as there was not enough data to study this. We should therefore be cautious in interpreting these results in the context of young people’s current screen use habits.

“Most of the data contributing to these conclusions comes from cross-sectional studies, where screen use and the developmental or mental health outcome are measured at the same time. This means that it cannot say much about whether higher screen use leads to poorer outcomes.

“Research is urgently needed to understand the role of different types of screen use in the development of young people’s developmental and mental health outcomes over time to support policy making in this area.”

‘Screen Use and Child and Adolescent Development and Mental Health Outcomes A Quantitative Umbrella Review’ by Elizabeth Al-Jbouri et al. was published in JAMA Pediatrics at 16:00 UK time on Monday 28^thSeptember.

DOI:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.4339

Declared interests

Tatiana Íñiguez Berrozpe: She has not stated whether she has any conflicts of interest.

Víctor González Calatayud: He has not stated whether he has any conflicts of interest.

Prof Esther van Sluijs:

1.   Employee of Loughborough University

2.   Previously employed at University of Cambridge

3.   Chief Scientific Officer of Adolescent Health Study (secondment)

4.   In receipt of grant funding from NIHR, MRC

5.   Member of funding panel for Huo Family Foundation

6.   Deputy Editor Journal of Physical Activity and Health