During the holidays, kids often spend more time on screens, leaving parents to wonder: Is it causing harm? Possibly.

For preteens, the odds of developing OCD over a two-year period increased by 15% for every hour they played video games and by 11% for every hour they watched videos, according to a new national study led by UC San Francisco researchers and published 12 December 2022 in the Journal of Adolescent Health [1].

“Children who spend excessive time playing video games report feeling the need to play more and more and being unable to stop despite trying,” said Jason Nagata, MD, lead author of the study and assistant professor of paediatrics at UCSF. “Intrusive thoughts about video game content could develop into obsessions or compulsions.”

Watching videos, too, can allow for compulsive viewing of similar content – and algorithms and advertisements can exacerbate that behaviour, he added.

OCD is a mental health condition involving recurrent and unwanted thoughts as well as repetitive behaviours that a person feels driven to perform. These intrusive thoughts and behaviours can become severely disabling for the sufferers and those close to them.

“Screen addictions are associated with compulsivity and loss of behavioural control, which are core symptoms of OCD,” Nagata said.

Researchers asked 9,204 preteens ages 9-10 years how much time they spent on different types of platforms; the average was 3.9 hours per day. Two years later, the researchers asked their caregivers about OCD symptoms and diagnoses. Use of screens for educational purposes were excluded.

At the two-year mark, 4.4% of preteens had developed new-onset OCD. Video games and streaming videos were each connected to higher risk of developing OCD. Texting, video chat and social media didn’t link individually with OCD, but that may be because the preteens in the sample didn’t use them much, researchers said. Results may differ for older teens, they added.