Previously submitted to: JMIR Mental Health (no longer under consideration since Feb 21, 2026)
Date Submitted: Feb 20, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Factor Replication, External Validity, and Temporal Stability of the Digital Stress Scale Among Children and Adolescents
ABSTRACT
Background:
The near-ubiquitous use of smartphones and digital media among youth has been well-documented, along with concern over what the impact of such usage might be with respect to well-being outcomes. The construct of digital stress has emerged to characterize the negative effects of device usage and includes different dimensions of how adolescents and young adults experience stress associated with digital media. The Digital Stress Scale (DSS) was developed to measure this construct and has been shown to be stable, valid and reliable.
Objective:
The current analysis sought to replicate the factor structure of the DSS in an independent and representative sample of US children and adolescents aged 8-17; and to evaluate temporal stability and external validity.
Methods:
Data from 722 children and adolescents participating in the ongoing Technology Effects and Child Health: Wellness Impact and Social Effects (TECHWISE) study were analyzed. Self-report DSS scores at Baseline and 1 month, as well as self reported scores from the WHO-5 Well-Being Index (WHO-5), and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) were used. Standard factor analytic methods were used to evaluate factor structure. Spearman correlations assessed the relationships between DSS factors and criterion measures (WHO-5; K6). Test-retest reliability was evaluated using Spearman correlations and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC 2,1) were estimated using two-way random effects models with absolute agreement.
Results:
Initial factor structure for the DSS was confirmed and extended to the younger age group. The DSS showed good test-retest reliability and correlated strongly with measures of psychological well-being and distress.
Conclusions:
This study adds to the growing literature on the potential adverse effects of digital media use in children and adolescents and supports the continued use of the DSS as a way to measure the impact of such usage across time. Clinical Trial: Data from this analysis were derived from the TECHWISE study (NCT06664944).
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