Positive Effects of Digital Technology Use by Adolescents: A Scoping Review of the Literature

Abstract

This study examines the research literature published from 2012 to 2022 on the relationship between increases in adolescent consumption of digital technologies and its impact on multiple areas of development, with a focus on how adolescent immersion in an increasingly ubiquitous digital world engenders positive outcomes in terms of brain, cognitive, and social-emotional development. The literature search yielded 131 articles, 53 of which were empirical studies of the relationship between increases in consumption of digital technology and brain development, cognitive development, or social-emotional development among adolescents. Overall, these studies identify positive outcomes for adolescents who use different types of digital tech, including the internet, social media, and video games.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 161 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.