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Time for the Human Screenome Project

To understand how people use digital media, researchers need to move beyond screen time and capture everything we do and see on our screens.
  1. Byron Reeves

    1. Byron Reeves is a professor of communication at Stanford University, California, USA.

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  2. Thomas Robinson

    1. Thomas Robinson is a professor of child health, paediatrics and medicine, and director of the Stanford Solutions Science Lab at Stanford University, California, USA.

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  3. Nilam Ram

    1. Nilam Ram is a professor of human development and psychology, and director of the Quantitative Developmental Systems Group at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.

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A teenage participant plays a game on her phone as others watch during a break in a traditional Chinese opera competition

A participant in a traditional Chinese opera competition plays on her phone. Credit: Thomas Peter/Reuters

There has never been more anxiety about the effects of our love of screens — which now bombard us with social-media updates, news (real and fake), advertising and blue-spectrum light that could disrupt our sleep. Concerns are growing about impacts on mental and physical health, education, relationships, even on politics and democracy. Just last year, the World Health Organization issued new guidelines about limiting children’s screen time; the US Congress investigated the influence of social media on political bias and voting; and California introduced a law (Assembly Bill 272) that allows schools to restrict pupils’ use of smartphones.

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Nature 577, 314-317 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00032-5

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