Exploring the Correlation between Screen Time, Video Games, and Empathy

Overview

Screen time has shown to negatively impact physical and mental health in teenagers, with video games linked to higher risks of developing socioemotional problems and depression. Empathy is a beneficial way to impact one’s understanding of emotions and development of social skills. There are two different types of empathy, cognitive empathy, the ability to understand other people’s emotions, and affective empathy, the ability to share other people’s emotions. Understanding how screen time and video games affect empathy could help explain how screen time and online content can influence teenagers’ ability to connect to others. This study explores the correlation between screen time, video games, and cognitive and affective empathy in middle schoolers. The AMES survey by Vossen and the Questionnaire for Screen Time for Adolescents by J Pediatr were given to 25 middle schoolers (11-14 years). The data was analyzed for trends and the results showed that participants with more weekly screen time had lower cognitive and affective empathy scores. Male participants with more weekly screen time showed higher cognitive empathy and lower affective empathy. Compared to male participants, female participants with more weekly screen time had lower cognitive empathy and higher affective empathy. Overall, participants who played more mature-rated video games showed lower cognitive and affective empathy scores. These results concluded that higher screen time and playing mature-rated video games may be linked to lower cognitive and affective empathy, bringing awareness to the amount of screen time and the type of video games teenagers should be exposed to weekly.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Junior Division) · Entry J-03-16

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