The Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) has been following several thousand London teenagers for over nine years. Thanks to the continued commitment of SCAMP participants, the study has already produced important findings. These include: using screen-based media at night (especially in the dark) being linked with too little sleep and poorer sleep quality; using social networking sites for more than five hours per day being associated with emotional and behavioural problems; and using mobile phones or video gaming for more than three hours per day being associated with obesity.
SCAMP has also shown that access to natural green spaces, such as grassland and woodland is linked with better thinking skills, better memory, and better mental health. In addition, the study has found a sharp rise in clinical depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among girls and among young people with high mobile phone use and sleep problems.
SCAMP is continuing to investigate why mental health problems often emerge during adolescence. The research team is exploring how factors such as mobile phone and social media use, sleep, physical activity, and cognition (how the brain processes information) may influence mental health. Long-term studies like SCAMP are vital because they help researchers understand whether these effects are short-term or long-lasting.