[FG] Stadler Christina

There is widespread concern about how screen use might affect children’s development, but studies on this topic yelded mixed results. This is probably due to the fact that it is not just the time that children spend in front of a screen that matters, but also what children are watching and under what circumstances. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine whether child screen time is a risk factor for child development, considering additional factors that might play a role, such as screen content, parental motivations, time of day, non-screen based activities, sleep, and physical activity. The present study thus adresses three research questions: 1) How do young children in Switzerland use screens and how does this change during childhood? 2) Is child screen time a longitudinal risk factor for socio-emotional, language, and motor development? and 3) Which factors play a role in the longitudinal associations between child screen time and socio-emotional, language, and motor development?

To answer these questions, we are conducting a study with three timepoints each one year apart. At each timepoint, parents will answer online surveys on child screen use and socio-emotional, language, and motor developmental outcomes. Some parents will be invited to also complete a web add-on with additional online surveys and in-depth screen use assessment and a lab add-on with behavioral tests that measure child socio-emotional, language, and motor development, as well as a parent-child interaction during joint screen use.

This study will be the largest longitudinal study on children’s screen use starting in early childhood in Switzerland.

Imported from Grants Tool 4717721

The pervasive influence of social media content on platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, on the psychological and social development of adolescents and emerging adults has raised concerns regarding its contribution to the prevalence of mental disorders, including depression. While social media offers social connectivity, it also carries potential risks, such as reduced mental well-being and symptoms of depression and anxiety, addiction-like behaviors, low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and other mental health problems. However, we do not yet understand the mechanisms underlying the vulnerability to problematic consumption

of social-media content, its effect on mental wellbeing and depression, or whether it is related to different characteristics of adolescents and emerging adults. The proposed project aims to examine potential mechanisms in the association of social media use with symptoms of depression (primary outcome) and emotion regulation, self-esteem, and mood (secondary outcomes) among adolescents and emerging adults, considering several psychosocial and psychophysiological mechanisms.

The study design entails three subprojects, comprising cross-sectional and longitudinal online surveys, as well as a laboratory study involving adolescents and emerging adults. Subproject 1 will investigate the association between social media use (duration, content, context) and symptoms of depression, featuring an online survey. In subproject 2, we will examine longitudinal associations between social media use and symptoms of depression in the same target population using a repeated measures design. Subproject 3 will be conducted in the laboratory and aims to assess psychophysiological changes, including facial emotion expressions, heart rate, and heart rate variability, in response to different social media content.