ArticlePediatric research2025
Smartphone use, wellbeing, and their association in children.
Article in Pediatric research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Depressive Symptom Patterns and Digital Screen Exposure Among Adults in Qatar: A Cross-Sectional Study With Implications for Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Practice.Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing · 2026Article
- Problematic Smartphone Use and Quality of Life Among Greek Nursing Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Measuring Digital Stress in Children: Construct Validity, Model Comparisons, and Measurement Invariance of a Multidimensional Scale (DSS-CH).Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The longitudinal impact of smartphone dependency on happiness among children: A latent growth modeling approach.PloS one · 2026Article
- Digital distraction and adolescent development: a narrative review of smartphone use, cognitive effects, and policy interventions.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Navigating youth, smartphones, and policy: a balanced perspective on digital wellbeing.Pediatric research · 2025Article
- Developing a Safety Planning Smartphone App to Support Adolescents' Self-Management During Emotional Crises.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThis study assessed changes in the duration of smartphone use, problematic smartphone use (PSU), quality of life, and their association from 2018 to 2024 in children and adolescents.
methodsData were collected between 2018 and 2024 within the LIFE Child cohort study (Germany). We used a repeated cross-sectional dataset containing 2576 data points of 1113 10- to 17-year-old children and adolescents (51% male) who had reported on their quality of life, PSU, and their smartphone use duration. Hierarchical regression analyses were applied to assess associations of PSU, smartphone use duration, and quality of life with the year of assessment and associations of PSU and smartphone use duration with quality of life.
resultsFrom 2021 onwards, symptoms of PSU and smartphone use durations >3 h/day were significantly more frequent than in 2018. For PSU, these changes were significantly stronger in girls and younger children. Concurrently, quality of life was significantly poorer than in 2018. Both PSU and long smartphone usage durations were significantly associated with lower quality of life.
conclusionsThis study shows the increasingly problematic use of smartphones and its negative association with the overall declining quality of life of children over the last seven years. IMPACT: Problematic smartphone use in children and adolescents has increased in the last seven years, while quality of life has decreased. Problematic smartphone use is associated with decreased quality of life, and this association was especially strong in 2022 and 2023. In contrast to previous studies, the present time trend analysis covers time periods before and within the Covid-19 pandemic and suggests that the pandemic has reinforced the observed changes in smartphone use and quality of life. Restricting children's smartphone use might help to improve or maintain a higher quality of life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.