McDool Emily, Powell Philip, Roberts Jennifer, Taylor Karl
Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, UK.
Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, UK; School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, UK.
J Health Econ. 2020 Jan;69:102274. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.102274. Epub 2019 Dec 13.
Late childhood and adolescence is a critical time for social and emotional development. Over the past two decades, this life stage has been hugely affected by the almost universal adoption of the internet as a source of information, communication, and entertainment. We use a large representative sample of over 6300 children in England over the period 2012-2017, to estimate the effect of neighbourhood broadband speed, as a proxy for internet use, on a number of wellbeing outcomes, which reflect how these children feel about different aspects of their life. We find that internet use is negatively associated with wellbeing across a number of domains. The strongest effect is for how children feel about their appearance, and the effects are worse for girls than boys. We test a number of potential causal mechanisms, and find support both for the 'crowding out' hypothesis, whereby internet use reduces the time spent on other beneficial activities, and for the adverse effect of social media use. Our evidence adds weight to the already strident calls for interventions that can reduce the adverse effects of internet use on children's emotional health.
童年晚期和青春期是社交与情感发展的关键时期。在过去二十年里，这一人生阶段受到互联网几乎被普遍用作信息、通讯和娱乐来源的巨大影响。我们利用2012年至2017年期间对英格兰6300多名儿童的大量具有代表性的样本，来估计邻里宽带速度（作为互联网使用的代理指标）对一系列幸福指标的影响，这些指标反映了这些儿童对其生活不同方面的感受。我们发现，互联网使用在多个领域与幸福呈负相关。对儿童对外表的感受影响最为强烈，且对女孩的影响比对男孩更严重。我们测试了一些潜在的因果机制，发现既有支持“挤出”假说的证据，即互联网使用减少了花在其他有益活动上的时间，也有支持社交媒体使用产生不利影响的证据。我们的证据进一步支持了已经强烈呼吁的进行干预以减少互联网使用对儿童情绪健康不利影响的观点。
