ArticlePLOS global public health2025
Adolescents' screen time displaces multiple sleep pathways and elevates depressive symptoms over twelve months.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Digital media balance and mental health: effects of a school-based program.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Trends and Behavioral Correlates of Excessive Screen Time Among Swedish Adolescents: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study (2017-2023).Addictive behaviors reports · 2026Article
- Swedish Well-Being: The rising importance of age among demographic, personality, and social relationship factors.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- Longitudinal Association between Problematic Social Media Use and Sleep Problems among Adolescents: A Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model and Sex Differences.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2026Article
- Digital behavior and anxiety in the post-pandemic era: a five-year analysis of screen time, sleep, and behavioral risk profiles.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Adolescent smartphone use, sleep, and physical activity: daily associations between sensor-based measures in the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) study.Psychiatry research · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Recently the Swedish Public Health Agency published recommendations of a maximum of two-to-three hours of daily leisure screen time for adolescents aged 13-18, partly to promote better sleep (2024-Sep-02). Biologically and socially, adolescence is characterized by belated sleep times, and depressive effects of screen time can arise through sleep displacements. Theorized links between screen time, sleep, and depression, merited examination of four sleep mediators to determine their relative importance and determine which of them mediate future depression. Hypotheses were preregistered. Three-wave psychometric health data were collected from healthy Swedish students (N = 4810; 51% Boys; ages 12-16; N = 55 schools; n = 20 of 26 Stockholm municipalities). Multiple imputation bias-corrected missing data. Gender-wise Structural Equation Modelling tested four sleep facets as competing mediators (quality, duration, chronotype, social jetlag). The primary model result included the three first mediators to achieve acceptable fit indices (RMSEA = 0.02; SRMR = 0.03; CFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.94). Screen time deteriorated sleep within three months and effect sizes varied between mediators (Beta weights ranged: 0.14-0.30) but less between genders. Among boys, screen time at baseline had a direct adverse effect on depression after twelve months (Beta = 0.02; p <0.038). Among girls, the depressive effect was mediated through sleep quality, duration, and chronotype (57, 38, 45% mediation). Social jetlag remained non-significant. This study supports a modernized 'screen-sleep-displacement theory'. It empirically demonstrates that screen-sleep displacements impact several aspects of sleep simultaneously. Displacements led to elevated depressive symptoms among girls but not boys. Boys may be more prone to externalizing symptoms due to sleep loss. Results could mirror potentially beneficial public health effects of national screen time recommendations.
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