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Associations of mobile internet use and depressive symptoms with cognitive performance among Chinese adolescents: a
Danyan An1, Jinfei Hou1, Junsong Chen1
1Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hangzhou Children's Hospital, Hangzhou, China.
Background:
Chinese adolescents are spending more time online than ever, raising concerns about impacts on their cognitive development and mental health. This study aims to examine the association between time spent online, cognitive performance, and depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents.
Methods:
We analyzed data from the 2018 wave of the China Family Panel Studies for 3,226 adolescents (aged 10-19 years). Linear regression model was used to explore the associations of daily mobile internet use, depressive symptoms, with cognitive performance (vocabulary and mathematics), with linear and non-linear mobile internet use as exposures. To explore the combined effect of mobile internet use and depressive symptoms, an interaction term between them was further added to the model. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were conducted to check the robustness of the results.
Results:
The study found that approximately 14.5% of Chinese adolescents had depressive symptoms. Increased mobile internet use was associated with better vocabulary performance (β = 0.31; 95% CI = 0.1, 0.52), while no significant association was found with mathematics performance. Adolescents with depressive symptoms had significantly lower vocabulary (β = -1.49; 95% CI = -2.03, -0.95) and mathematics performance (β = -1.16; 95% CI = -1.58, -0.74). Notably, a significant interaction between mobile internet use and depressive symptoms was observed for vocabulary performance (β = 0.41; 95% CI = 0.17, 0.65).
Conclusion:
In this cross-sectional study of Chinese adolescents, depressive symptoms were consistently associated with both vocabulary and mathematics assessments. Mobile internet use showed a positive, modestly non-linear association with vocabulary performance. The significant interaction between depressive symptoms and mobile internet use for vocabulary performance suggests possible heterogeneity by depressive-symptom status, but this exploratory finding should be interpreted cautiously.
