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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1428885
This article is part of the Research Topic Youth Mental Health, Particularly in Asian Populations View all 66 articles
Association of Screen Time and Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms among Chinese Adolescents
Provisionally accepted- 1 Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (HZCDC), Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 2 Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Background: Although many studies have explored the relationship between screen time and depression and anxiety symptoms, there is still a lack of in-depth research in Chinese adolescents who are stressed and sleep deprived. This research aims to investigate this link in and examine the role of sleep duration as a mediating factor. Method: Data were collected from 3,307 students from 4 districts and counties of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, using a multi-stage random cluster sampling method and self-administered questionnaires. The study applied linear regression to investigate the relationship between screen time and depression and anxiety symptoms, and mediation analysis to understand how sleep duration might influence this relationship.Results: Teenagers who had more than 2 hours of screen is around 25.5% (33.56% for electronic devices and 17.46% for television), and average score was 5.942±0.085 for depression symptoms and 4.521±0.076 for anxiety symptoms. The linear regression analysis showed that longer electronic devices use (β=0.601, 95%CI: 0.265 to 0.937)), television usage (β=0.751, 95%CI: 0.346 to 1.156) were positively associated with
Keywords: adolescents, screen time, Mental Disorders, sleep duration, Mediator analysis
Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 03 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Duan, LIU and Qin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jue Xu, Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (HZCDC), Hangzhou, 310021, Zhejiang Province, China
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