This is scientific Americans 60 Second Science. I'm Jared Rizzie.

Kids spend a lot of time looking at screens and some parents worry, but a new study argues against the apprehension parents

may feel.

The danger is that they're hearing a message that social media digital technology

uses causing very serious and harmful problems like depression, like

suicide-related behaviors.

Candice Ogers, Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California Irvine.

And the idea is that if you shut off social media, which lots of kids use to connect with each other, their friends, find out information about health, you could in fact be making a situation worse.

Parents are really being sent a message that... could in fact be making a situation worse.

Parents are really being sent a message that is not supported

by anything scientifically.

Ogers and her colleagues looked at the screen-related behavior

of 400 public school students in North Carolina ages 10 to 14.

The group was picked as a representative sample of race and socioeconomic status for the entire

US.

The researchers found that even not counting time doing

schoolwork on screens, kids spent between almost five hours to seven hours per

day on their devices with older kids online the most.

That's a lot of hours, but...

Overall, what we find is no connection between the amount of time

that young people spend online using digital technologies and mental health

symptoms like depression anxiety when we do find associations they were actually

...