It’s never been easier for kids to spend all day staring at various screens. Besides all the endless options at their fingertips, going outside and seeing other people has been discouraged for over a year now. Regardless of the pandemic, many parents say they worry about how technology is influencing their children’s mental health. Surprisingly, however, a new study suggests there is little evidence of an increased association between adolescent technology use and falling mental health rates over the past 30 years.

对孩子们来说，整天盯着各种各样的屏幕是再容易不过的事了。除了他们手头有无穷无尽的选择之外，一年多来，人们一直不鼓励他们到户外去见其他人。抛开这场流行病不谈，许多父母表示，他们担心科技正在如何影响他们孩子的心理健康。然而，令人惊讶的是，一项新的研究表明，在过去的30年里，几乎没有证据表明青少年使用科技产品与心理健康率下降之间的联系有所增加。

In other words, this work does not support the popular belief that smartphones and other devices are actively harming our collective mental health.

换言之，人们普遍认为的智能手机和其他设备正在损害我们的心理健康的说法，这项研究并不支持。

In total, this work included 430,000 U.K. and U.S. adolescents, and looked for links between tech use and depression, anxiety, emotional issues, and conduct problems. Additionally, researchers assessed the association between TV consumption and various problems such as suicidal thoughts and depression.

这项研究总共包括43万名英国和美国的青少年，并寻找科技使用与抑郁、焦虑、情绪问题和行为问题之间的联系。此外，研究人员还评估了电视消费与诸如自杀念头和抑郁症等各种问题之间的关系。

Social media may cause emotional issues, but no major problems

社交媒体可能会引起情绪问题，但不会造成大问题

Among eight different categories, only three showed any significant changes over time. Social media and TV use actually became less strongly connected with depression. Meanwhile, social media did see a slight uptick in regards to emotional problems. Additionally, the team did not discover any meaningful connections between modern technology and suicidal thoughts or behavioral issues.

在八个不同的类别中，只有三个随着时间的推移显示出任何显著的变化。事实上，社交媒体和电视的使用与抑郁症的联系变得不那么紧密了。与此同时，社交媒体在情感问题方面确实出现了小幅上升。此外，研究小组没有发现现代科技与自杀念头或行为问题之间有任何有意义的联系。

“If we want to understand the relationship between tech and well-being today, we need to first go back and look at historic data–as far back as when parents were concerned too much TV would give their kids square eyes–in order to bring the contemporary concerns we have about newer technologies into focus,” says lead study author Matti Vuorre, a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, in a media release.

“如果我们想了解当今科技与幸福之间的关系，我们首先需要回顾一下历史数据——早在父母担心过多的电视会让孩子睁大眼睛的时候——以便将我们对新技术的当代担忧集中起来，该研究的主要作者、牛津互联网研究所的博士后研究员马蒂·沃雷(mattivuorre)在一次媒体发布会上说。

“As more data accumulates on adolescents’ use of emerging technologies, our knowledge of them and their effects on mental health will become more precise,” says Andy Przybylski, director of research at Oxford Internet Institute and senior author of the study. “So, it’s too soon to draw firm conclusions about the increasing, or declining, associations between social media and adolescent mental health, and it is certainly way too soon to be making policy or regulation on this basis.”

“随着越来越多的数据积累在青少年对新兴技术的使用上，我们对这些技术及其对心理健康的影响的认识将变得更加精确,”牛津互联网研究所(Oxford Internet Institute)研究主任、该研究的资深作者安迪•普日比尔斯基(Andy przy。“因此，现在就对社交媒体与青少年心理健康之间的联系是增加还是减少得出确定的结论还为时过早，在此基础上制定政策或监管当然也为时过早。”

“We need more transparent and credible collaborations between scientists and technology companies to unlock the answers. The data exists within the tech industry; scientists just need to be able to access it for neutral and independent investigation,” Przybylski concludes.

“我们需要科学家和技术公司之间更加透明和可信的合作，以解开答案。这些数据存在于科技产业中，科学家只需要能够访问它们进行中立和独立的调查。

The study appears in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

这项研究发表在《临床心理科学》杂志上。