Association between digital smart device use and depression among older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis
Juan Gu, Xiaohong Zhang, Yake Yue, Mengjie Tong, Yufei Qiu, Jiali Liu, Yong Zhou, Fen Yang · 2026
Read Association between digital smart device use and depression among older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis by Juan Gu, Xiaohong Zhang, Yake Yue, Mengjie Tong, Yufei Qiu, Jiali Liu, Yong Zhou, Fen Yang (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13330471.txt.
Description
Do phones and tablets lift or sink the mood of older folk? Juan Gu and seven co-authors pooled the field in 2026 and found the tale too mixed for one line. Twenty-eight studies of sound build made the sweep, near all of them snapshots rather than follows. A three-story pooling method let each study's inner splits count on their own floor.
The pooled marks lean one way for plain mood scores and another for hard calls of depression, with wide doubt around both. How the devices are used may matter more than how long: a call to a grandchild is not a doom scroll. The team sort the moderators that bend the link, and urge follows over snapshots next. Their close is a shrug with a map attached.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Juan Gu, Xiaohong Zhang, Yake Yue, Mengjie Tong, Yufei Qiu, Jiali Liu, Yong Zhou, Fen Yang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 40 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |