Following more than 8,000 children from age 9 to early adolescence, this longitudinal study disentangles social media from other screen use and shows a specific, small but potentially population-relevant link to worsening attention over time, independent of genetic risk.
Digital Media, Genetics and Risk for ADHD Symptoms in Children – A Longitudinal Study. Image Credit: Javidestock / Shutterstock
A recent Pediatrics Open Science article reports that researchers tested whether different types of digital media (DM) use predict changes in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children over four years while accounting for genetics and socioeconomic status.
Rising ADHD and Digital Media Concerns
One in ten to one in eight school-age children in the United States (US) shows ADHD symptoms, a rise that worries families and schools. Parents often ask whether today’s always-on DM plays a role. DM spans social networking, texting, video chat, video games, and television/videos, yet studies often lump them together and rarely distinguish between attention and hyperactivity.
As one news summary put it, “The use of screens and digital media has risen sharply in the past 15 years,” alongside more ADHD diagnoses. Clarifying which media matter and for whom can guide age limits, platform design, and family routines.
The authors note that prior evidence is mixed and largely cross-sectional, underscoring the need for longitudinal analyses that distinguish symptom domains. Further research should refine mechanisms and protective strategies.
Longitudinal Design and Measurement Approach
Participants came from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a US multisite cohort recruited at ages 9 to 10 years and followed annually.
Children self-reported their typical weekday and weekend time spent in (a) social media use (texting, social networking sites, and video chat), (b) playing video games, and (c) watching television/videos, using the Youth Screen Time Survey. Average daily hours were computed across waves to reflect habitual patterns.
Parents rated ADHD-related symptoms with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), including factor-derived inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity scores aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
Genetic liability was captured using a polygenic risk score for ADHD (PGS-ADHD) derived from genome-wide association study data, and models were also adjusted for the first 10 genetic principal components (PCs). Covariates included age, sex assigned at birth, study site, and a composite socioeconomic status (SES) index.
Longitudinal associations were estimated with linear mixed models (random intercepts and slopes), testing media-type-by-time interactions and moderation by PGS-ADHD, sex, ADHD diagnosis, and ADHD medication at baseline. Cross-lagged panel models probed directionality between social media use and inattention.
Statistical significance was assessed using two-tailed P < 0.05, with a Bonferroni correction applied to the main longitudinal models to account for multiple comparisons.
Social Media Predicts Rising Inattention
The analysis included 8,324 children (mean age 9.9 years, approximately 53% boys). Across four annual follow-ups, children averaged roughly 1.4 hours/day of social media, 1.5 hours/day of video games, and 2.3 hours/day of television/videos.
Social media showed a small but consistent association with increasing inattention over time (standardized β per year approximately 0.03), accumulating to an estimated four-year change of β approximately 0.15.
In contrast, playing video games and watching television/videos were not linked to increases in ADHD-related symptoms over time; in some models, these activities were associated with slight decreases in hyperactivity-impulsivity, below thresholds for practical relevance.
As described by the study authors, the observed association was specific to social media use rather than digital media exposure overall.
Directionality analyses supported a path from social media use to later inattention rather than the reverse. Children with higher inattention at one wave did not subsequently report more social media time, consistent with the conclusion that reverse causation was not supported in the data.
The social-media-specific pattern remained robust across sensitivity checks that restricted the sample (for example, to term births or to typically developing children) and under varying assumptions about missing data.
Genetic risk for ADHD, indexed by PGS-ADHD, correlated with baseline symptoms and with some baseline media habits. PGS-ADHD did not moderate the longitudinal association between social media use and inattention, although the authors report a modest moderation effect for the combined ADHD symptom score.
The association also did not differ by sex, baseline ADHD diagnosis, or baseline ADHD medication status, pointing to a broadly similar pattern across subgroups.
From a public-health perspective, small average effects can translate into large population effects. The authors emphasize that while the individual-level effect on concentration was small, at a population level it could have a meaningful impact.
A one-standard-deviation rise in social media exposure, plausible given secular trends, paired with a ~0.15-standard-deviation increase in inattention, could shift the proportion of children crossing clinical thresholds, as illustrated by the authors’ population-based projections.
Daily exposure also increased over development; the average time spent on social media rose from approximately 30 minutes a day for 9-year-olds to about 2.5 hours for 13-year-olds, despite nominal age-13 platform minimums.
In the discussion, the authors propose that social media’s constant stream of messages, alerts, and notifications may interfere with sustained attention, even in the absence of active engagement.
Implications and Future Directions
Over four years, greater social media use, unlike video games or television/videos, was associated with small but reliable increases in inattention among US children, with evidence favoring a path from use to later symptoms.
As an observational study, the findings cannot prove causality, but the temporal pattern and robustness checks are consistent with a likely causal relationship. Genetic liability for ADHD (PGS-ADHD) did not change this link for inattention.
Not every child who uses social media will struggle, but families, schools, and platforms can act now on age limits, age verification, and notification controls, while recognising that these recommendations extend beyond the study’s direct empirical tests.
The authors conclude that these results may help inform parental guidance and policy discussions around healthy digital media use, while future follow-up will clarify whether the association persists into later adolescence.
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