Contemp School Psychol 2017 21 80 91 DOI 10 1007 s40688 017 0119 0 SYSTEMATIC REVIEW Digital Media and Youth a Primer for School Psychologists Elena Savina 1 2 Jennifer L Mills 1 Kelly Atwood 1 Jason Cha 1 Published online 17 January 2017 California Association of School Psychologists 2017 Abstract The growing proliferation of digital media over the past few decades has engendered both significant promise and significant concerns regarding children s development Digital media have changed the ways young people learn interact with others and develop essential cognitive and social emotional skills This paper provides school psycholo gists with a comprehensive literature review about the effects of digital media on various aspects of children s functioning It discusses the effects of digital media use on youth s physical and mental health attention and cognition It further high lights risks for young people s cognitive functioning associat ed with multitasking and reviews the outcomes of reading on a screen vs reading on paper Special attention is given to the effects of digital media on youth s social emotional function ing including relationships with others and identity forma tion and socio emotional risks such as cyberbullying and ag gressive behaviors School psychologists are provided with recommendations on how to incorporate information about digital media in their work with parents educators and youth in order to promote healthy digital media use Elena Savina savinaea jmu edu Jennifer L Mills millsjl dukes jmu edu Kelly Atwood atwoodkc dukes jmu edu Jason Cha chajx dukes jmu edu 1 Department of Graduate Psychology James Madison University 70 Alumnae Dr MSC 7401 Harrisonburg VA 22807 USA 2 Orel State University Orel Russia Keywords Digital media Health Cognition Learning Socio emotional development Digital media have become a ubiquitous part of our culture and youth s lives In the USA young people use digital media e g TV video games computers on average about 7 5 h a day every day and the use of digital media continues to rise Rideout et al 2010 Overall African American children spend more time watching TV and playing video games com pared to Hispanic and White children Roberts and Foehr 2008 It is estimated that today s children may spend up to 20 years of their lives engaging with the Internet Biocca 2000 There is a concerning trend regarding the early expo sure of children to TV as statistics show that 33 of house holds in the USA have a TV in the rooms of children younger than 6 years of age Roberts and Foehr 2008 and 43 of children under age two watch TV every day Rideout and Hamel 2006 Children younger than 2 years of age are ex posed to an average of 5 5 h of background TV per day almost twice as much as 6 8 year old children in addition African American children children from single parent homes and low income families and children whose parents have less formal education are at greater risk to be exposed to background TV Lapierre et al 2012 Digital media provide youth access to a vast amount of information and create new opportunities for learning and social interaction At the same time they significantly change the socio cultural context of child development and the ways young people learn communicate and interact with others Excessive digital media use can interfere with important for mative relationships with family and peers Morimoto and Friedland 2011 Steiner Adair 2013 Subrahmanyam and Greenfield 2008 Multitasking associated with digital media can compromise executive functioning and overtax mental Contemp School Psychol 2017 21 80 91 81 resources Baumgartner et al 2014 Courage et al 2015 Rosen et al 2012 Additionally the ease of access to infor mation can lead to exposure to dangerous individuals and scary or violent images Livingstone et al 2011 Steiner Adair 2013 Wilson 2008 The goal of this paper is to provide school psychologists with a comprehensive review of studies examining the effect of digital media on the main domains of youth development including physical and mental health cog nitive processes learning and socio emotional development Both benefits and risks associated with digital media use will be discussed In order to provide understanding of the devel opmental aspect of digital media use the paper reviews stud ies pertaining to young children school age youth and emerging adults It will supply school psychologists with rec ommendations on developmentally appropriate ways to use digital media at home and school Digital Media and Youth s Physical and Mental Health There are several health related benefits associated with using digital media for young people including easy and anonymous access to online health information joining online support groups for health related conditions and using mobile tech nologies e g cell phones instant messaging to adhere to a medication regimen O Keeffe et al 2011 Further using neurofeedback through a smart tablet can improve executive function in children with attention problems Shin et al 2016 and a smartphone application was found to be useful for the treatment of pediatric obsessive compulsive disorder Whiteside et al 2014 Technology can be a valuable tool for delivering preventive interventions as it provides an easy access to health information and a possibility to tailor inter ventions towards recipients needs Ybarra 2014 Examples of such interventions include the Internet based healthy sexu ality program BCyberSenga which was tested in secondary schools in Uganda and BStop My Smoking a text messaging based smoking cessation program for young adults imple mented in the United States and Turkey Both programs dem onstrated promising results in promoting healthy behaviors in youth Ybarra 2014 At the same time excessive digital media use represents an environmental risk factor for youth s physical and mental health For example excessive TV watching is associated with obesity A longitudinal study with kindergarteners showed that watching TV for 1 to 2 hours a day significantly increases the risk of becoming overweight and obese DeBoer et al 2015 In addition to its contribution to a sedentary life style watching TV may also shape youth s beliefs and pref erences for food as children are exposed to 4400 7600 TV advertisements per year for unhealthy food Strasburger et al 2010 Another likely reason for the link between heavy TV viewing and obesity could be eating while watching TV A number of studies explored