Background

Adolescents spend much of their leisure time using digital media. As a result, a growing concern is that heavy internet/digital media use could negatively impact adolescents' mental health. In the past decade, a number of studies have been conducted to investigate such concerns. Unfortunately, the findings of such studies have been mixed. Whereas some reported negative associations, others reported either positive or no associations.

Aims

1. To examine the link between screen time (internet use) and subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and less negative affect)
2. To examine the differential association of the frequency of different types of digital media use and subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and less negative affect)

Method

This study uses data from the 2018 round of the OECD’s PISA. Over 600,000 students participated in the PISA 2018 assessment cycle, representing about 32 million 15-year-olds in the schools of 79 countries and economies (OECD,2019). Forty-five countries had data for both subjective well-being and digital media use (260,711 students attending 11, 259 schools). The SBW measure included three major components: positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction (Diener & Emmons, 1984). The analysis was undertaken using R (R Core Team), using a three-level hierarchical linear modeling approach as implemented in the lme4 package (Bates et al.,2004).

Results and conclusion

The results indicated that across the 45 countries, students who spent more time on the internet (3 hrs. or more) reported lower life satisfaction, lower positive affect, and higher negative affect than those who used the internet for 2 or fewer hours per day outside school. The effect held after accounting for SES. The findings also showed that the frequent use of certain digital media such as solo gaming and browsing the internet for fun was negatively associated with life satisfaction. Collaborative games and using the internet for communication, information, and connections were positively associated with life satisfaction and positive affect.