TY - JOUR PY - 2021// TI - Digital media use and suicidal behavior in U.S. adolescents, 2009-2017 JO - Preventive medicine reports A1 - Leventhal, Adam M. A1 - Cho, Junhan A1 - Keyes, Katherine M. A1 - Zink, Jennifer A1 - Riehm, Kira E. A1 - Zhang, Yi A1 - Ketema, Elizabeth SP - e101497 EP - e101497 VL - 23 IS - N2 - U.S. adolescent suicidal behavior and digital media use prevalence have contemporaneously increased this decade in population-level ecological analyses. The purpose of this study was to determine whether these two trends are directly associated by using multi-year person-level data to test whether the association of year with suicidal behavior was mediated by digital media use. Data were from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (2009-2017), a nationally-representative biennial cross-sectional self-report survey of U.S. students (N = 72,942). Mediation analysis was used to estimate the proportion of cross-year changes in suicidal behavior that were mediated by concurrent changes in leisure-time digital media use. Past-year suicidal behavior in 2011 (19.6%), 2013 (20.4%), 2015 (21.7%), and 2017 (20.5%) increased relative to 2009 (17.1%). Hours of daily digital media use in 2011 (mean[SD] = 2.65[1.86]), 2013 (mean[SD] = 3.02[2.08]), 2015 (mean[SD] = 2.97[2.12]), and 2017 (mean[SD] = 3.01[2.18) increased vs. 2009 (mean[SD] = 2.31[1.81]). The association of survey year with suicidal behavior was mediated by digital media use-20.5%(95%CI = 16.2, 24.8), 34.3%(95%CI = 24.5, 44.1), 22.8%(95%CI = 17.3, 28.0), and 41.4%(95%CI = 33.9, 49.5) of cross-year suicidal behavior prevalence increases (vs. 2009) for 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017, respectively, were mediated by concurrent digital media use increases. Therefore, small proportions of the 2009-2017 increases in U.S. adolescent suicidal behavior are associated with concurrent increasing digital media use trends. Further exploration of these trends is warranted.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 2211-3355 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101497 ID - ref1 ER -