Digital tech link to mental health
Ministry says tie could be especially strong in youth
Officials are looking at the possible link between the use of digital technologies and surging demand for mental health services.
Dr John Crawshaw, director and chief adviser of mental health, told the Herald the link could be particularly strong for children and teenagers.
His comments come as the Ministry of Health releases new guidelines, discouraging any screen time for under-2s, and recommending a daily limit of an hour for children under 5.
“The science advice to the ministry is that early childhood and adolescence are times when the human brain is particularly malleable — for instance, we’ve long recognised that it can be dangerous for the brains of the young to be exposed to alcohol or drugs when they’re so susceptible.
“The modern digital environment does offer an explosion of positive opportun- ities and connections for young people, both socially and in learning, but there’s a danger of overexposure. So it’s important that these are carefully managed,” he said.
“It would be foolish to ignore the potential impact of the digital dimension as an influence on mental health,” Crawshaw said, adding he wanted to keep discussions on the topic going, through the ministry’s chief science adviser, John Potter, and Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser.
The country’s mental health system has become an issue ahead of September’s election.
Labour leader Andrew Little has pledged to make improving services a priority if in government, and a series of reports highlighting problems have been released, the latest from the Office of the Auditor-General on discharge procedures for patients who end up in hospital.
Budget 2017 allocated an extra $224 millon over four years for mental health services. Cabinet will soon consider a new mental health strategy.
Crawshaw spoke to the Herald after appearing before Parliament’s health select committee, which is eyeing its own review into mental health services.
The percentage of the population seen by a mental health specialist or second- ary service has increased to 3.6 per cent, from 2.2 per cent in 2002/03.
He said what was driving that was being investigated.
“New Zealand society is experiencing ... urbanisation and some of the pressures associated with that. Also the change in terms of digitisation, and the digital impacts on particularly our young people,” he told the committee.
Martin Cocker of Netsafe, a not-forprofit focused on online safety, said it was early days in terms of research on how use of digital technology could affect mental health.
“We are starting to see researchers explore the sort-of mass effect of the technologies that we have picked up.”
Negative effects could range from being sat in front of a screen for too long to bullying and self-perception risks through comparing via social media, he said.