COVID-19 pandemic has imposed digital platforms as the only means for people to maintain socio-emotional connection ( Kanekar and Sharma, 2020). In addition, social connectedness also enhances mental well-being. Social connection is fundamental to humans. They are a medium of communication, virtual interactions and connectedness between people.

Electronic devices include computer, laptop, palmtop, smartphone, tablet or any other similar devices with a screen. Digital technology is essentially the use of electronic devices to store, generate or process data facilitates communication and virtual interactions on social media platforms using the internet ( Vizcaino et al., 2020). It has accelerated human’s exposure to prolonged screen time which is becoming a growing concern. The last two decades have seen an explosion in the use of digital technology. Though there are mixed consequences of prolonged screen time use and blurred understanding between healthy and unhealthy social connectedness over digital media, the suggestions for negative implications on (physical and) mental health warrant a strict need for inculcating healthy digital habits, especially knowing that digital technology is here to stay and grow with time. Results reveal that screen time has increased drastically during COVID-19. The present review attempts to understand the virtual social connectedness, excessive use of digital technology, its consequences and suggest strategies to maintain healthy use of digital technology. A lack of comprehensive empirical overviews on screen time in COVID-19 era in the present literature prompted us to conduct this review.

With the global societies under lockdown, the only medium to stay socio- emotionally connected was the digital one. Screen time during COVID-19 has further increased as a result of public health measures enforced by governments to curb the pandemic. This has pushed researchers and practitioners to focus on digital well-being. With an advancement of digital technology, excessive screen time has become a grave concern.

2Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Mumbai, India.

1Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar (IIPHG), Gandhinagar, India.

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