257 minutes: the time teens can spend on computers each day before harming wellbeing

Parents should worry less about the amount of time their children spend using smartphones, computers and playing video games because screen time is actually beneficial, the University of Oxford has concluded.

The rise in technology in the past decade has led to fears that teenagers could be damaging their social skills and mental health by spending increasing amounts of time online or immersed in a virtual world.

Yet when researchers at Oxford University quizzed 120,000 15-year-olds about their wellbeing and compared it to screen time, they found the use of gadgets had a positive impact.

In fact, wellbeing peaked at four hours and 17 minutes of computer use a day before starting to dip again, suggesting devices have a Goldilocks Zone where the amount of screen time is ‘just right.’ For smartphones the ‘sweet spot’ was around two hours and one hour 40 minutes for video games.

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