A new child and youth mental health report sheds light on the scale of our global knowledge gaps on the correlation between childhood technology use and childhood mental health impacts.
Over the past decade, mental health conditions in children and adolescents have seen a significant rise across all countries and incomes. The World Health Organisation estimates one in seven 10-19 year olds worldwide experience a mental disorder, and that a third of conditions emerge by age 14.
“It’s astonishing that we’re not doing more to understand this issue,” says Marija Manojlovic, executive director of Safe Online, who released the new findings at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
“We know that children’s technology use is increasing, and we’re past the point of no return. Technology is embedded into almost everything we do. But we don’t really know what the long-term impacts are for children and adolescents. Most research on the topic is speculative.
“Most shockingly – there are huge gaps in research on the impact for under-5s when we know children as young as 2 are using phones and tablets.
“At a time when governments, like the UK, are developing screentime guidelines for pre-schoolers and parents are seeking guidance on technology use – we must have better evidence to help navigate these critical issues.
“We know that mental health conditions for under-18s have been rising for a decade but we don’t have the longitudinal research to understand the relationship with digital technologies in depth. This is a particular area of interest for me,” says Manojlovic.