Is Your Child Addicted to Screen Media?

I have a pre-teen child who I sometimes describe as being “addicted” to iPhones, iPads, iMacs, televisions, etc. Although I try to limit how many streaming services our family subscribes to at any given time, there exists an endless amount of freely available content on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and numerous other social media sites to consume a child’s every waking minute. There are also numerous popular video games that suck up time that should otherwise be spent on doing homework, socializing with friends, or sleeping. Therefore, I often find myself asking my child to turn off electronic screens and spend more time in the real world.

Many parents like me may wonder if their children are addicted to screens. To answer this question, one must start by defining a standard way to measure addiction. Some researchers have attempted to do this by developing and validating the Problematic Media Use Measure (PMUM) which is a collection of questions related to behavioral manifestations of screen media addiction in children. Although the PMUM Full Scale consists of 27 items, there is a PMUM Short Form consisting of 9 items with very similar performance. Those 9 items, each representing a factor related to problematic media use, are as follows:

• It is hard for my child to stop using screen media. (Unsuccessful control)
• Screen media is the only thing that seems to motivate my child. (Loss of interest)
• Screen media is all that my child seems to think about. (Preoccupation)
• My child’s screen media use interferes with family activities. (Psychosocial consequences)
• My child’s screen media use causes problems for the family. (Serious problems due to use)
• My child becomes frustrated when he/she cannot use screen media. (Withdrawal)
• The amount of time my child wants to use screen media keeps increasing. (Tolerance)
• My child sneaks using screen media. (Deception)
• When my child has had a bad day, screen media seems to be the only thing that helps him/her feel better. (Escape/relieve mood)

Parents are asked if each of those statements is true for their child in the past month, with responses based on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Never (1 point) to Always (5 points). The authors state that PMUM scores correlate well with parent-child conflicts over screen media use (e.g., television, computers, tablets, smartphones, and video games) and that it is a valid and reliable measure of screen media “addiction” in children 4-11 years old. They note, however, that additional clinical validation should be done and that cutoff scores need to be established. In this context, do you view media use as being problematic for your child?

Crowdsourcing Mask Compliance

When you’re out in public, do you wear a mask, and do you notice when others don’t? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, the folks from Regenstrief Institute have announced the release of MaskCount, a mobile app that enables the public to crowdsource data related to mask wearing in public. Users simply report counts of people wearing masks and not wearing masks simply by tapping or swiping in the app.

The thought behind this app is that when combined with other data, researchers can analyze the effects of local public health policies and study the association between mask-wearing and various COVID-19 trends. Regenstrief plans to make the data publicly available via privacy-preserving dashboards. While location data will be captured by the app, the only information displayed to the public will be aggregated data.

MaskCount is available for both iOS and Android devices. There is no cost to download or use the app, and it is available in 15 languages. Are you planning to report mask compliance?

Precision Medicine Research

The Precision Medicine Initiative was launched in January 2015 and provided funding to the  National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to support research, development, and innovation related to tailoring care to patients based on their genetic profiles.

Precision medicine has been used in practice for quite some time. For example, we know that for certain cancers, lab tests can sometimes help doctors select chemotherapy agents that are more likely to work. We also know that genetic mutations can make some patients poor candidates for certain drugs, and alternative medications should be prescribed instead. The goal of the Precision Medicine Initiative is to accelerate our understanding of how to tailor our therapies for patients based on their genetic information.

A Precision Medicine Initiative Working Group assembled in March 2015 and concluded its work in September 2015 with a report which included recommendations to launch a project to transform the understanding of factors contributing to individual health and disease. That set the stage for the “All of Us” Research Program which launched in May 2018 and seeks to enroll one million people across the U.S. to help build one of the most diverse health databases in history.

This creates more opportunities to:

• Know the risk factors for certain diseases
• Figure out which treatments work best for people of different backgrounds
• Connect people with the right clinical studies for their needs
• Learn how technologies can help us take steps to be healthier

Here’s an overview of how the program works:

You can read more about the program in this article. If you are interested in participating, you can enroll through https://joinallofus.org/ or download a smartphone app for iOS or Android. From there, you’ll be asked to fill out a series of questionnaires about your health, and eventually you may be given the opportunity to complete additional health surveys, use smartphone and sensor devices for data collection, and/or join future studies that could involve in-person visits or biospecimen collections.

A public Data Browser provides interactive views of the publicly available All of Us Research Program participant data. All data are de-identified, meaning that while each individual’s data are pooled into the master database, there should be no personally identifying information that could allow visitors or researchers to trace the data bace to the individual source.

COVID-19 National Daily Health Survey

Some folks at Stanford Medicine are conducting a National Daily Health Survey to learn and predict which geographical areas will be most impacted by coronavirus based on how people are feeling. It is a research study that will be used to inform local and national responses, such as redirecting medical resources or improving policies and public guidance. Upon first-time completion, some of the questions are as follows:

   

It appears that there are multiple research efforts that are competing for the public’s attention, such as the COVID Symptom Tracker that I discussed previously. While there are some similarities in the questions asked, both research studies ask about COVID-19 symptoms, exposure, health professional status, etc. Both research studies also request that participants fill out questionnaires on a daily basis.

I have been completing the COVID Symptom Tracker questionnaire daily through an iOS app. It takes about 1 minute to complete. The COVID-19 National Daily Health Survey can provide daily email reminders if you choose to provide your email address, and after the initial survey, subsequent assessments are estimated to take about 1 minute to complete as well.

It might be interesting if researchers partnered on crowdsourcing efforts like this to come up with a master list of questions and answer responses that could be used by multiple research teams to achieve their individual goals. This would only work if they are studying the same topic with overlapping survey questions.

Crowdsourcing Data for COVID-19 Research Studies

If you’re interested in contributing to our world’s understanding of COVID-19, consider downloading the COVID Symptom Tracker which is available on iOS and Android platforms.

Note that this app is NOT designed to give you advice related to COVID-19. It is a data collection research tool that was created by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, King's College London and Stanford University School of Medicine, working in partnership with ZOE Global Ltd. It is intended to support studies like the Nurses’ Health Study that was established in 1976 and is longitudinally tracking health and lifestyle factors on outcomes in women. The app can also be used to support other studies across the United States. A FAQ provides more general information about the app and its purpose.

After downloading and answering a few questions related to your current symptoms (if any), you’ll be asked to try to self-report on a daily basis. This is a great example of how technology solutions can be used to scale research efforts. On a related topic, consider reading this viewpoint on how to preserve clinical trial integrity for COVID-19 research.