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Do we control the time we spend with gadgets?
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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As numerous studies show, most people do not control how much time per day they spend with gadgets and how long they look at monitor or smartphone screens.
In medicine, there is such a concept as "screen time" - this is the period of time during which a person is in front of the screen of a tablet, smartphone, computer or TV. It is no secret that such a period can be quite long, which has an extremely negative effect on many functions of the body. Long screen time is often associated not only with deterioration of vision, but also with the development of depressive states and neuroses, the emergence of antisocial behavior and suicidal thoughts, the formation of attention deficit in childhood and adolescence. In addition, prolonged exposure to gadget screens negatively affects the quality of sleep and disrupts brain activity. Recently, therapists, psychologists, and doctors of other fields have been talking about this. Many studies have been conducted proving the existence of a close relationship between the duration of screen time and the emergence of pronounced psychological problems.
However, not everyone and not always are able to correctly assess screen time. Of course, it can be tracked by the period of gadget activity. However, how realistic is such a subjective assessment? Scientists representing the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Oslo studied more than twelve thousand scientific materials on this topic. As a result, they identified almost fifty of them, allowing to give a real assessment of real screen time.
The materials studied included information about fifty thousand people: as it turned out, almost all of them did not estimate the time spent in front of screens in accordance with reality. Scientists explain that the average user incorrectly estimates periods, overestimating or underestimating their duration. Only about 5% of participants calculated screen time relatively accurately.
Experts point out the need to clearly record the moment the gadget is turned on and off, which is especially important for children and teenagers. In most cases, the duration of screen time is underestimated, since only the longest period of time spent in front of the screen is taken into account, without taking into account periodic short "approaches". Without such information, it will not be possible to assess the likelihood of developing depressive states, feelings of uselessness and loneliness, and antisocial behavior.
Scientists note that it is necessary to conduct more such studies and to inform the public more about this problem, although this requires quite a lot of effort.
Details are described in the material of the periodical Nature Human Behaviour.