Trans-identified and gender-questioning adolescents engage in significantly more recreational screen time and exhibit higher rates of problematic screen use compared to their peers
Using data from the third year of the U.S. Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which included 9,859 participants mostly aged 12-13, Nagata et al. (2024)1 found that trans-identified youth report an average of 4.51 more hours of daily screen time, and gender-questioning youth report 3.41 more hours, compared to other youth. This screen time includes activities such as browsing the internet, playing video games, texting, using social media, and watching television and movies. Adjusting for various confounders, the study also indicated higher instances of problematic use of social media, video games, and mobile phones among these groups. Problematic use was defined as being “characterized by inability to control usage and detrimental consequences from excessive use including preoccupation, tolerance, relapse, withdrawal, and conflict.”