Prenatal chemical exposures associated with subsequent digital media use in adolescence

Abstract

Background: Use of digital media (computer, smart phones, social media, gaming, etc.) has increased drastically in the past decade, with 97% of US teens reporting use. While digital media can be a valuable educational and social tool, excessive use has been associated with adverse health including maladaptive behavior. Despite established associations between environmental chemical exposure and adverse neurobehavioral development, there are limited data on the role of these exposures as predictors of maladaptive digital media use.Methods: Participants were a subset of the New Bedford Cohort (NBC), a birth cohort study of 788 children born 1993-1998 to mothers residing near the New Bedford Harbor Superfund site, Massachusetts Biomarkers of prenatal chemical exposure to metals and organochlorines were measured from samples collected at delivery (cord blood) or approximately 10 days post-partum (maternal hair/nails)children. Digital media use was assessed via questionnaire from 528 NBC participants as adolescents (age ~15 yrs). We used multivariable negative binomial models to assess the association between a 2-fold increase in chemical biomarker concentrations and risk of high (>75th% of hrs/week) digital media use.Results: In this racially diverse (31% non-white or Hispanic) and socioeconomically disadvantaged population of adolescents (e.g., at birth, 38% lived in low income households, and 58% of mothers had ≤ high school education), each doubling of peripartum maternal toenail arsenic was associated with a 1.34 increase in relative risk of high digital media use (95% CI: 1.06, 1.70), while each doubling of toenail cadmium was associated with a 1.26 increase (95% CI:1.05, 1.50). We did not observe associations with organochlorines.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that prenatal exposure to some metals may be associated with excessive digital media use in adolescence. Understanding environmental risk factors for maladaptive use is key to strategies for remediating digital media’s potential adverse health impacts.[Funding: NIEHS/NIH P42ES005947, R01ES014864; T32ES007069].