Kids and the Web
by Steve Brawner
12:00 PM, Monday, September 26 2011 | 1185 views | 0 0 comments | 7 7 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Dr. Erick Messias has three roles: Psychiatrist, epidemiologist and dad, and it’s because of what he has learned in those first two roles that, in the third, he limits his 9-year-old son to an hour of video games and Internet a day during the week and two on weekends.

Messias, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, explains that an epidemiologist’s job is simply to report the outcomes that occur when a population is exposed to a certain environment.

When it’s done right, it’s a straightforward way of looking at the world that focuses on what, where and when, but not so much why.

He has found, for example, that people who say they bear grudges have twice the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure as those who say they don’t. Those are the numbers, and they surprised him.

“Most of my studies have proved me wrong,” he told a crowd at UAMS on Sept. 14.

Messias’ latest study, done with fellow UAMS professor Dr. Juan Castro, found a correlation between heavy video game/Internet use and youth depression and suicidal actions.

They looked at the results of the past two Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, a biannual report by the Centers of Disease Control in which thousands of young people are asked about their health habits. One of the questions is about the amount of time they spend each day playing video games and surfing the Internet — from none to five or more hours. Young people also were asked if they had been sad for a period of two weeks during the past year and if they had suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts.

Here’s what Messias and Castro found. In 2009, 16 percent of young people who played video games and surfed the Internet five or more hours a day had experienced at least that two-week period of sadness, compared to eight percent who never played or surfed. Seventeen percent of heavy gamers/surfers had suicidal thoughts, compared to 10 percent of the zero use group.

If those numbers are accurate, then the obvious question is, were more members of the first group sad because they spent all day staring at screens, or were they spending all day staring at screens because they were sad?

Messias doesn’t have a definitive answer for that, not as an epidemiologist and not even as a psychiatrist.

The study had some interesting findings regarding the group that never played video games or surfed the Internet. Those young people were more likely to have been sad, and to have suicidal thoughts, than those with an hour or less of screen time a day.

The zero users and the heaviest users were the most likely to actively plan suicide, along with those who played/surfed three hours. As for actually attempting suicide, again the extremes were most likely to say yes, with the group that played/surfed five-plus hours more than twice as likely as the non-users.

The best explanation, he said, is probably poverty.

Why are kids who never play video games or surf the Internet more likely to attempt suicide than those with moderate exposure? Again, it’s not the epidemiologist’s job to know for certain. It might be just a coincidence. The numbers get small when it comes to actual attempts, so that skews the data.

A lot of these kids never play video games or surf the Internet because their families can’t afford those luxuries, and poverty is a major risk factor for depression and suicide.

Could it be that some of those young people with zero screen time are growing up in homes where there is a lack of balance and freedom, and that is leading to problems? Maybe, Messias says.

Regardless, his 9-year-old son gets an hour a day of video games and Internet usage, plus an extra hour each day on weekends.

Messias the epidemiologist knows the risks increase with more exposure. For Messias the dad, it doesn’t matter why.

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