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Isn’t it pretty obvious not all screen time is the same? If it was then you could do these studies with people staring at simple glowing white rectangles and ge

Isn’t it pretty obvious not all screen time is the same? If it was then you could do these studies with people staring at simple glowing white rectangles and get identical results.

glogla 6y ago
Yeah, screen time "doomscrolling", screen time "playing online board game with friends", screen time "reading a book" and screen time "watching a movie" are pretty different screen times.
- metamet 6y ago
  But they're all... screens. And you're spending your time looking at them, regardless of what's on them and how you interact with it. I do agree that they are different. But they're still screens.
  - bananabiscuit 6y ago
    Right, so just because this study doesn’t bother to differentiate between different things people can do with screens, you are saying it’s all the same?
    - falcolas 6y ago
      Insufficient information to make a reasonable conclusion, I'm guessing. It could very be related to what's on the screen, but it might not. Insufficient data. Screens are very new in relation to the development of human physiology, so I don't think we can assume that screens themselves are not a cause.
      - username90 6y ago
        Screen time at work is not correlated with depression though. The explicitly choose to remove that factor, since many jobs with tons of screen time like software engineer have very happy people.
say0nara 6y ago
No, it's not obvious at all.
lumberjack 6y ago
To me it is not obvious. What causation do you think is at play here? A lot of commenters seem to think it is some kind of emotional mechanism, mentioning things like social media and such. But it might just be a physical mechanism, like being too sedentary, or eye fatigue.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  How about something like e-ink? That's a screen, but in terms of optical properties I believe it should resemble paper.
  - lumberjack 6y ago
    I never tried e-ink for prolonged times, but I always found the contrast to be a bit lacking, which is something that contributes to eye fatigue. Last I used such devices was over 5 years ago though, so maybe technology has improved now.
- username90 6y ago
  Reading a book on a screen is basically the same as reading a physical book. There is no reason one would cause depression while the other wouldn't, unless it is due to the physical screen which is a problem that can be fixed. I've never seen a study saying that reading books causes depression, so it shouldn't.
blix 6y ago
If you somehow managed to convince a group of people to stare at a glowing white rectangle for 10 hours day, I would be pretty surprised if you couldn't notice any mental health effects.
- bananabiscuit 6y ago
  True, but I argue that those mental health effects would be different than other kinds of screen time :)
  - blix 6y ago
    Probably, but the effects of different types of screen time would likely be more similar to each other than going for a walk in the woods.
- Sunspark 6y ago
  After reviewing all the porn on the internet, I am no longer able to sustain an erection.
ravitation 6y ago
It certainly seems very likely that what you're doing with said screen matters quite a bit, but this is also an extremely complex thing to try to study. Not only can the net result (i.e. a hypothetical positive or negative result) of a given activity change based on the individual instance of that activity, but it can also change based on the person doing that activity (whose mindset could also change depending on the instance, which could effect the net result of a given instance of a given activity). The point is, while it might be "pretty obvious that not all screen time is the same," it would also not be that surprising if screen time was still negatively related to the average number of common screen activities over a certain amount of time (which is what you would expect from a study like this). I'll of course hedge my statement, by saying that the Hacker News community is likely not a representative sample when it comes to common screen activities relative to the general population.
dkersten 6y ago
My comment wasn't meant to agree or disagree with these statements, just to comment on how I find it interesting that people are making assumptions or defining screen time to suit their own opinions. As for whether its obvious: maybe, but there are many cases where something seems obvious (certainly to laypeople in the subject) but that are actually flat out wrong. So, as someone who hasn't studied these things, I say, yes, it seems obvious, but just because I think its obvious, doesn't necessarily mean its true.
- philosopher1234 6y ago
  we can only think things when a double blind study of 100 people on average think them. we are all excatly the mean of N>100 other people, and anyone who believes otherwise is mistaken.

Isn’t it pretty obvious not all screen time is the same? If it was then you could do these studies with people staring at simple glowing white rectangles and get identical results.

glogla 6y ago

Yeah, screen time "doomscrolling", screen time "playing online board game with friends", screen time "reading a book" and screen time "watching a movie" are pretty different screen times.

metamet 6y ago
But they're all... screens. And you're spending your time looking at them, regardless of what's on them and how you interact with it. I do agree that they are different. But they're still screens.
- bananabiscuit 6y ago
  Right, so just because this study doesn’t bother to differentiate between different things people can do with screens, you are saying it’s all the same?
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Insufficient information to make a reasonable conclusion, I'm guessing. It could very be related to what's on the screen, but it might not. Insufficient data. Screens are very new in relation to the development of human physiology, so I don't think we can assume that screens themselves are not a cause.
    - username90 6y ago
      Screen time at work is not correlated with depression though. The explicitly choose to remove that factor, since many jobs with tons of screen time like software engineer have very happy people.

say0nara 6y ago

No, it's not obvious at all.

lumberjack 6y ago

To me it is not obvious. What causation do you think is at play here? A lot of commenters seem to think it is some kind of emotional mechanism, mentioning things like social media and such. But it might just be a physical mechanism, like being too sedentary, or eye fatigue.

waterhouse 6y ago
How about something like e-ink? That's a screen, but in terms of optical properties I believe it should resemble paper.
- lumberjack 6y ago
  I never tried e-ink for prolonged times, but I always found the contrast to be a bit lacking, which is something that contributes to eye fatigue. Last I used such devices was over 5 years ago though, so maybe technology has improved now.
username90 6y ago
Reading a book on a screen is basically the same as reading a physical book. There is no reason one would cause depression while the other wouldn't, unless it is due to the physical screen which is a problem that can be fixed. I've never seen a study saying that reading books causes depression, so it shouldn't.

blix 6y ago

If you somehow managed to convince a group of people to stare at a glowing white rectangle for 10 hours day, I would be pretty surprised if you couldn't notice any mental health effects.

bananabiscuit 6y ago
True, but I argue that those mental health effects would be different than other kinds of screen time :)
- blix 6y ago
  Probably, but the effects of different types of screen time would likely be more similar to each other than going for a walk in the woods.
Sunspark 6y ago
After reviewing all the porn on the internet, I am no longer able to sustain an erection.

ravitation 6y ago

It certainly seems very likely that what you're doing with said screen matters quite a bit, but this is also an extremely complex thing to try to study. Not only can the net result (i.e. a hypothetical positive or negative result) of a given activity change based on the individual instance of that activity, but it can also change based on the person doing that activity (whose mindset could also change depending on the instance, which could effect the net result of a given instance of a given activity). The point is, while it might be "pretty obvious that not all screen time is the same," it would also not be that surprising if screen time was still negatively related to the average number of common screen activities over a certain amount of time (which is what you would expect from a study like this). I'll of course hedge my statement, by saying that the Hacker News community is likely not a representative sample when it comes to common screen activities relative to the general population.

dkersten 6y ago

My comment wasn't meant to agree or disagree with these statements, just to comment on how I find it interesting that people are making assumptions or defining screen time to suit their own opinions. As for whether its obvious: maybe, but there are many cases where something seems obvious (certainly to laypeople in the subject) but that are actually flat out wrong. So, as someone who hasn't studied these things, I say, yes, it seems obvious, but just because I think its obvious, doesn't necessarily mean its true.

philosopher1234 6y ago
we can only think things when a double blind study of 100 people on average think them. we are all excatly the mean of N>100 other people, and anyone who believes otherwise is mistaken.