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Comment by flashgordon | Hacker News Reader

Actually this article starts with that right? ie 7 hours is worse than 1 hour (implying more is worse).

>>> Young people who spend seven hours or more a day on screens are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety than those who use screens for an hour a day, finds a new study published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports.

Are you suggesting 1 hour is harmless and 7 hours is extremely rare (assuming that is already proven) and hence nothing is new in this article?

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To clarify my sibling comment, I never said, "nothing is new in this article" as you state. I said there is nothing worrying in the article because it does not show an increase in mental health problems among the population of children even though there has been a massive increase in screen time.

No, I'm saying that there is no causation here. Kids who spend a lot of time in front of screens could be doing so because they have mental health issues or because of another reason entirely (e.g., lack of parenting) that also causes more mental health issues.

If the same number of kids have mental health issues as before there were so many screens, there is nothing to worry about. I'll start to worry if more kids have mental health problems, and then it makes sense to figure out what is causing that increase.

Wouldn't this still be useful information as a diagnostic tool? If someone is on a screen for 7 hours a day, it's twice as likely they're depressed. That seems worth disseminating.

Or a person who expresses their depression in an obvious way, like spending 7 hours a day in front of a screen, might be more likely to be noticed and helped toward a diagnosis.

The original title was "There’s Worrying New Research About Kids’ Screen Time and Their Mental Health." My point is that the article doesn't have anything worrying in it. Having a new diagnostic tool isn't something to worry about. If anything, it's the opposite.

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