Bullying victimization and weekday recreational screen time among U.S. children and differences by sex

Abstract Recreational screen use is a near universal feature of childhood in the United States. Much research has been conducted on adverse health outcomes associated with daily recreational screen time. The drivers of high usage, however, remain understudied. This research examined the relationship between bullying victimization and weekday recreational screen time, testing for differences by sex. Using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (2022–2023), a nationally representative sample of 65,122 U.S. children aged 6–17, we found that 93.3% engaged in at least one hour of entertainment-related screen time per day. Survey-weighted ordinal logistic regression was used to estimate the association between bullying victimization and weekday recreational screen time. A clear graded relationship was observed whereby increasing frequency of bullying victimization was associated with progressively greater odds of higher weekday recreational screen time. Although slightly more males spent 3 or more hours/ day on screens overall, the association between bullying frequency and screen time followed a similar upward trajectory for both sexes, and the interaction term was not statistically significant. This study provides nationally representative evidence that bullying victimization is strongly associated with greater daily recreational screen time among U.S. children aged 6–17. The observed graded relationship suggests that bullying may be an underrecognized factor in screen use behaviors. These findings have strong implications for future research, especially urgently needed cohort studies that examine comprehensive measures of screen time and establish thresholds for bullying victimization that may inform screen time policies and other domains of child and adolescent health.