The work has been commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) after a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 found the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions suitable to inform policy.
The project – led by a team at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with researchers at several leading UK universities including Bristol – is aimed at improving policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between children’s wellbeing and smartphone use, including social media and messaging. It will help direct future government action in this area.
Project lead Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC CBU) at the University of Cambridge said: “There is huge concern about the impact of smartphone use on children's health, but the evidence base remains fairly limited. While the government is under substantial time pressure to make decisions, these will undoubtedly be better if based on improved evidence.
“This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep up.
“Our focus will be on deepening our causal understanding of the effects of new technologies, particularly over short timescales, to ensure that decisions are informed, timely and evidence-based.”
Dr Orben will lead a Project Delivery Team, with Consortium Members from the universities of Bristol, Bath, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and York and the London School of Economics. It will aim to identify which research methods and data sources will be most effective at identifying potential causal relationships between social media, smartphones, and the health and development of children and young people.
Professor Claire Haworth and Dr Oliver Davis from Bristol’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences lead Bristol’s contribution to this consortium, bringing expertise in mental health and wellbeing, data science and causal analysis.
Prof Haworth, Professor of Behavioural Genetics in Bristol’s School of Psychology said: “This project provides an unparalleled opportunity to bring together experts working in this area to ensure the data already available can be used effectively to inform policy, but also to plan for future data collection and evidence synthesis that can rapidly inform policy.
At Bristol, we have a dataset of millions of Tweets linked to participants in our Children of the 90s cohort which gives us unique opportunities to investigate how people’s use of social media over time is related to their mental health.”
Dr Oliver Davis, an Associate Professor and data scientist at Bristol Medical School, added: “Bristol’s position as AI University of the year means we are well placed to derive meaning from large and complex datasets like this. Stronger recommendations for policy will come from analyses that are able to determine causation rather than just correlation, an area where Bristol has world-leading expertise.”
Deputy project lead Dr Amrit Kaur Purba, also from the MRC CBU at Cambridge, said: “The impact of social media on young people is a pressing issue, and our project will ensure the research community is in a strong position to provide policymakers with the causal and high-quality insights they need. While we don’t expect this to be straightforward, our research will leverage diverse expertise from across the UK to deliver a comprehensive and informed response to make recommendations for how research in this area should be supported in future.”
The researchers will review and summarise existing research on the impact of smartphones and social media on children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing, physical health, lifestyle and health behaviours, and educational attainment. The review will recognise the diversity of perspectives that exist in this area and consider where further research could add valuable new insights to the evidence base.
They will assess the various methods and data available to understand the causal impacts, including recognising that online habits and emerging technologies are changing at a rapid pace, and considering how the experiences of vulnerable children and young people – for example, LGBTQ+ young people and those with special needs or mental health issues – can be captured in future research projects.
This will allow the team to recommend and outline how future research studies could deliver robust and causal evidence on the impact of smartphones and social media on child development factors in the next two to three years.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, said: "The online world offers immense opportunities for young people to connect and learn. Ensuring they can do so in an environment which puts their safety first is my priority and will guide this government’s action on online safety.
“That’s why we have launched new research, led by the University of Cambridge with support from other top UK universities, to better understand the complex relationship between technology and young people's wellbeing.
“This vital research will build a trusted evidence base for future action, helping us to protect and empower the next generation towards a safer and more positive digital future."