Tackling our ‘screenagers’

NZ study offers a new idea to wean teens off screens

Kiwi researchers will trial an innovative approach used in the corporate world to tackle a growing public health issue, “screenagers”.

The latest Ministry of Health data shows 90 per cent of Kiwis aged 10 to 14 look at a screen or watch TV for more than two hours per day — the recommended limit.

Other recent research has found eight in 10 Kiwi teens and six in 10 primary school children have no limits on their screen time out of school — whether that’s playing computer games, using their phones, or browsing the internet.

The advent of smartphones and social media has been tied to lone- liness, depression, risk-taking, isolation, exclusion and suicide.

Yet University of Auckland researcher Dr Samantha Marsh said few tools are available that effectively slash screen-time in the long-term.

In a Health Research Council (HRC)-funded study, Marsh will design and test an intervention aimed at parents to help them make decisions about cutting their teen’s screen time and to follow through on them.

The approach draws on principles of a field called neuro-economics, which asserts that decision-making — particularly under risk and uncertainty — initiates in the emotion centre of the brain.

Marsh will explore how to target emotion in the decision-making process, as opposed to relying on logic and rationalisation which has failed to address the issue.

Rather than focusing on outcomes — acting to “reduce screen time”, this technique “influences decisionmaking by focusing on values, and the beliefs that inspire us”, she said.

“We might deeply value the idea of teens engaging with their environment or family, for example. Excessive screen use merely represents a barrier or roadblock to this value.”

The concept has already had success in the corporate world, but in research it was a radically different approach, Marsh said.

Meanwhile, another study also just awarded one of the HRC’s Explorer Grants will use a virtual reality (VR) laboratory to measure the reactions — including heart rate and sweat — of e-cigarette and tobacco smokers.

University of Canterbury researcher Dr Melanie Tomintz, who will lead the work, said a radical shift in thinking needs to be introduced to understand underlying causes of people’s subconscious behaviour.

Currently, health data is mainly collected by using surveys, which could lead to bias and inaccurate representations of people’s actual behaviour, she said.

The study aims to measure people’s behavioural and psychophysiological reactions when exposed to virtual stimuli, such as tobacco, different flavours of e-cigarette liquids, and other conditions within a virtual world.

Tomintz hopes the newly collected behavioural data could be transformed into new ways to support personalised cessation support.

For her study she’ll have access to an existing virtual lab, including two multisensory VR cage prototypes.

Beyond this project, the virtual lab could be used to test people’s reactions to proposed future policies.

The explorer grant scheme seeks to attract and fund transformative research ideas with the potential for major impact on healthcare.

“Our explorer grants aim to support scientists to do work that challenges established wisdom — to really go where no one has gone before and break new ground,” said HRC chief executive Professor Kath McPherson.

“We know some of these studies will make a real difference to what we know, how we think, and eventually result in better outcomes for New Zealanders.”