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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1572895
This article is part of the Research TopicThe influence of Internet and technology on mental health and psychological adjustment of young adultsView all 6 articles
Fast-Paced and Violent Media Exposure are Positively Associated with ADHD and Impulsivity in College Students
Provisionally accepted- 1Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
- 2Iowa State University, Ames, United States
- 3Phoenix Children's Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona, United States
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Previous research reveals that screen media exposure is positively associated with attention problems and impulsivity. Three cross-sectional correlational studies examined the extent to which fast-paced versus violent media exposure are associated with attention-related problems in college students. Multiverse data analyses (Steegan et al., 2016) tested the robustness of results. Fast-paced and violent media effects were examined separately and uniquely using SEM. A Pilot study (N = 233) found weak but significant zero-order correlations of both fast-paced and violent media exposure on self-control. However, the main SEM results were not significant, although in the expected direction, perhaps because of single-item assessments of media pacing and violence. Main Studies 1 (N = 438) and 2 (N = 456) found that exposure to fast-paced media was positively associated with ADHD-symptoms; this effect was reduced when media violence was added to the model. Both studies also found that greater exposure to violent content was uniquely and positively associated with impulsivity. Overall, findings suggest that fast-paced and violent media yield small but reliable effects that may play an important role in attention-related problems in young adults. Future research should continue to investigate the relationships between media use on attention-related problems, especially longitudinal studies to test direction of causality.
Keywords: media exposure, Media Pacing, violent content, ADHD, impulsivity, attention deficits, attention problems
Received: 07 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hayes, Anderson and Swing. 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: Craig A Anderson, Iowa State University, Ames, United States
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