The study, titled “Temporal patterns of adolescent screen time and compulsive internet use in Moroccan high school students,” examined how screen use changes from one day to another and whether those patterns are associated with compulsive internet use and other characteristics.
Published in Addictive Behaviors Reports, the study involved 334 high school students aged 14 to 18 from three public schools in the Casablanca region. The students reported their screen time and internet use over seven consecutive days, while researchers also examined their use of specific platforms.
Sunday stands out
The biggest difference was not simply how much time teenagers spent on screens, but when they spent it.
Average daily screen time ranged from around 4 hours and 40 minutes on weekdays to more than 8 hours and 20 minutes on Sunday.
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The researchers found that Sunday had the highest level of use, with screen time about 70 to 80 minutes higher than on Friday and Saturday. Both weekend days also recorded significantly more screen use than Monday through Thursday.
The study identified two distinct patterns among the teenagers: a lower, relatively stable-use group, accounting for 34.7% of participants, and a higher-use group with a pronounced weekend peak, which represented 65.3%.
The second pattern was more common among older girls.
What are they doing on their screens?
The researchers also found differences in the types of platforms used by boys and girls.
Girls reported more daily time on Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp, while boys spent more time on YouTube and gaming applications.
For example, average daily Instagram use was about 181 minutes among girls, compared with 151 minutes among boys. Gaming showed the opposite pattern: boys averaged about 64 minutes a day, compared with roughly 15 minutes among girls.
The study also found that girls had higher average scores on the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS) than boys.
More screen time linked to compulsive internet use
The researchers found a clear association between compulsive internet use and overall daily screen time.
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Each additional point on the CIUS was associated with roughly four extra minutes of screen time per day. Higher CIUS scores were also strongly associated with belonging to the higher-use group characterized by a weekend peak.
That does not mean the study established that compulsive internet use causes teenagers to spend more time on screens, or vice versa. The research examined associations rather than cause and effect.
What the study actually measured
The researchers were interested in day-to-day changes in screen use, rather than simply calculating one weekly average.
The students’ screen-time figures were taken from their device usage reports and manually recorded by the participants over the seven-day period. The researchers then used statistical models to identify different weekly patterns and examine factors associated with those patterns.
The study’s findings are based on students from three schools in the Casablanca region, so they should not be treated as a measurement of screen use among all Moroccan teenagers.
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The researchers also note limitations including the study’s cross-sectional design and the fact that the screen-time information was manually transcribed rather than automatically collected from the devices.
