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Overview of studies linking time spent on smartphones with blood pressure

Hypertension Research volume 44, pages 259–261 (2021)Cite this article

The wide and increasing adoption of mobile technologies might impact public health in many ways. While most researchers have tried to leverage these technologies to track blood pressure levels or increase treatment compliance [1], smartphone use might increase blood pressure levels through several pathways, such as reduced physical activity, increased anxiety levels, and forward head posture. Currently, there is not enough evidence to establish a definitive effect of smartphone use on blood pressure (BP). I would like to provide an overview of the extant observational and experimental studies.

To date, four studies have investigated the effect of smartphone use on BP among adolescents using a cross-sectional design [2,3,4,5]. Another study investigated the effect of Internet exposure on university students (aged 18–30) using a case-crossover experimental design [6]. These studies were performed in the United States of America, Turkey, China, Japan, and Great Britain. None of the identified studies were conducted in adults over the age of 30 years. Most studies (four out of five) used self-reported measures of hourly smartphone use, and two of them used addiction scores. None of the studies measured smartphone screen-time habits objectively (e.g., screen-time reports provided by the smartphone), and only one of the studies simulated a short 15 min session to gather data about browsing history. Smartphone usage was assessed with different parameters, such as “usually”, “in the last 30 days”, “in the past year”, “during the evening”, and “over the last two months”. None of the studies reported a causal model using directed acyclic graphs or similar tools. As a result, it is unclear whether their statistical models were biased and, if so, to what extent. Future studies should establish causal diagrams a priori. Details about each study can be found in Table 1.

Table 1 Characteristics of the included studies
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  1. School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, 2206 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada

    Jorge Andrés Delgado-Ron

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Delgado-Ron, J.A. Overview of studies linking time spent on smartphones with blood pressure. Hypertens Res 44, 259–261 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41440-020-00540-x

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