Addiction 101 | CAMH

Dr. Robert Mann: The Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, or OSDUHS as we call it, is an omnibus survey that collects information on mental health, substance use and health behaviours from students in Grades 7 to 12 in the province of Ontario.

One of the focuses of this report is technology, and by technology we mean things like screen time, cyberbullying, social media use, video gaming. We are seeing high levels of engagement with social media in the student population. Eighty-six per cent report visiting these sites daily. More concerning is we see 16 per cent of students reporting five hours or more per day on social media sites. One of the things we've been tracking is problem video gaming, that's increased significantly over the years from around seven per cent to 13 per cent now in 2015. And that's about 120,000 students, which is a substantial number. And by problem, we mean that these students are having trouble controlling the amount of time that they spend playing these games and meeting their other responsibilities because the games are interfering with that.

Lisa Pont: We know that boys are four times more likely to have a problem with video game playing. Technology overuse in general is a little bit harder to say. Girls tend to use different things than boys. With girls, we know that maybe they might be more likely to have a problem with social media. But we know that things are complex because even within social media, sometimes there are games.

Dr. Robert Mann: One of the measures that we track is texting and driving. And we see that overall, among student drivers in Grades 10 to 12, about a third of them report texting and driving. And by the time the students are in Grade 12, over 44 per cent of them report texting and driving.

Lisa Pont: It's a behavioural response that when something vibrates or dings or lights up we're going to look at it. We're going to want to look at it. When you're a younger person, especially if you are a younger person with tech overuse, it might be more difficult to delay that impulse.

Dr. Robert Mann: Nearly two-thirds of the students are what we call “screen time sedentary,” which means they spend three hours or more per day in front of a screen outside of school hours. And we see that these numbers have increased significantly over the past few years.

Lisa Pont: The results that I'm seeing among young people with technology overuse is increased rates of anxiety and depression, family conflict, school performance issues and often an inverted sleep schedule, so they are up all night with their technology and sleeping during the day or maybe missing some class or not being able to pay attention in class.