Article: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

[thessa516]

Well, I thought this quote from the article is a good start on looking at the cause.

 

But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness. One study asked college students with a Facebook page to complete short surveys on their phone over the course of two weeks. They’d get a text message with a link five times a day, and report on their mood and how much they’d used Facebook. The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they felt, but feeling unhappy did not subsequently lead to more Facebook use.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2017 by thessa516

[Bluegoat]

These sorts of articles and discussions that condemn an entire generation make me roll my eyes. Yes, I know there are trends. But trends are not the whole picture. Plenty of people buck trends. And people tend to be more complicated and might fit some trends and not others. And of course there is the whole "correlation doesn't equal causation" thing.

 

I just spent all morning with teen volunteers with not a smartphone in sight. I think that some of the doomsayers need to get out more.

 

In addition, these conversations always seem to bring out a certain kind of smugness in people who aren't "ruining their kids". I have no problem with families and individuals making a whole range of choices on technology etc. but in my experience no one has a corner on winning parenting based on these choices. For one thing, as experienced parents know, our parenting choices are just one piece of the puzzle especially when it comes to teenagers.

 

 

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If you apply that logic more generally, it becomes impossible to use statistics at all.  Demographics, medical research, etc is all out the window, because trends and probabilities are meaningless, even very strong ones.

 

I guess it makes sense not to worry about social trends when you don't think they exist.

[Bluegoat]

Correlation is not causation.

 

It doesn't take much thinking to flip these things around - maybe already depressed teens spend more time on their phones?

There are many more environmental factors affecting teens than just phone usage. Seems to me phones can function as a handy scapegoat. 

 

Why are we not looking at factors like our education systems? Our socio-economic or ecological systems? Our political systems, which can engender a sense of hopelessness in grown adults who never even saw a smart phone till their 40's? 

 

Seems to me the Millenials I know are worried by things like the gig economy, climate and ecological issues, housing affordability, corruption in high places...FOMO via smartphone doesn't even make the top ten.

 

As I mentioned to SKL, the article did touch on that question.  Those things may well be factors, but they aren't suddenly new in 2010.  So they don't seem to account very well for the data he was looking at.

[Bluegoat]

I'd try searching the keywords.  I didn't see anything suggesting the author published.

[wintermom]

I suspect the danger in smart phones, electronics, etc lies in the fact that we as a culture do not teach our children how to enjoy their leisure. Many adults I know today got out to eat, play video games, watch TV, go to movies, etc when they have off time. Not that any of those are bad, but it is very difficult for me and my husband to find outher adults that enjoying DOING and LEARNING new things!!! When you enjoy doing and learning new things, you use smart phones for what they are for...tools. That right there probably explains a lot of depression and social unhappiness.

 

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I get together with dozens of adults multiple times a week doing physical activities, such as tennis, yoga, swimming, and could also do aerobics but I don't like it. My kids are swimming in the local pool daily. No phones needed or useful. 

 

Phones are all part of the social problem of too much sitting on our butts. 

[Pen]

probably

 

and likely physical issues as well as social ones

 

We live in a rural area, but ds could get together  in person with friends nonetheless.  Yet has spent much of the summer connected to electronic devices, his SP being the main one, not to real people.

 

I also don't know what is "chicken and what egg" is some cases.  The second closest city to us has a roller rink still, for example, but it is in danger of closing due to low use.

[Pen]

I'm not finding anything in Google scholar using her name and the search term smartphones/adolescents at this time. I think the article is a hypothesis, rather than a summary of the evidence proving causation. Hypotheses are always interesting.

 

If anyone finds any papers on smartphones and teens, showing a link to increased mental health disorders, please post, because I'd be interested to read. 

 

 

No. But another with hypothesis re EMF related to smartmeters and mood:  here

 

 

And some books on EMF dangers in general that I read indicated increased prevalence of mood problems around electric.

 

The above is from a physical pov.

 

Anecdotally and from an emotional pov, a friend of my ds's who ran into bullying problems at two different high schools said that smartphones were related due to ease of sending a receiving messages, including pix, that increased bullying and social isolation for her as a person who was not part of the in-group.

[Bluegoat]

She's pretty well known. I would have liked to see links to research she drew upon, that's all, if she hasn't done studies on this exact hypothesis herself. She's written a lot about increasing narcisissism, I believe.

 

It could be that it isn't published yet, which is why she's making some cash on an opinion type article.

 

If you are really keen, it might be worthwhile to email her and ask.

[Pen]

There's also been some research showing that SP use has a dopamine releasing effect short term causing actual addiction...   What would that do on longer term?  If one needs one's fix increasingly as with other addictive behaviors?  Something on this might have been on a 60 Minutes program in recent times (say within last year)...   Or if I find other source, I'll let you know.

 

 

 

Googling I found:  http://zeenews.india.com/health/parents-take-note-excessive-use-of-smartphone-impacts-teenager-s-sleep-mood-and-mental-health-2010449

 

and  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/30/teenagers-sleep-quality-and-mental-health-at-risk-over-late-night-mobile-phone-use

[JumpyTheFrog]

We went to the trampoline park today. I saw 3-4 differnt middle school kids standing around playing with their phones on or next to a trampoline (not all together in one group). They had on wristbands, so their parents had paid for them to get in and jump. (Non jumpers can watch for free.) I wondered why they couldn't go without the phone for one hour to jump.

[Pen]

I think issues around phones and sleep (and bullying and social media) are pretty well established. 

 

There's a difference, though, between correlation, causation, mediation and moderation. Subtle differences, but important if we want to avoid knee jerk reactions - it's the phones! - and get to the root of the problem. 

 

I'll give you an example. Say we observe that our teen is using their phone late at night, and then is tired when they get up for school the next day. It seems obvious that their phone use is responsible for their fatigue, right? But what if the relationship between phone use at night, and fatigue the next day, is mediated by adolescent sleep patterns? What if our teen is going to bed too early for their changing sleep patterns, and using the phone is a behavioral response to the resulting insommnia? And their fatigue is related to their start time not being in synch with their sleep patterns? 

 

We might take away the phone, and still not deal with the root of the problem. 

 

 

I agree with that.

 

You'd need to compare what happens if a child stays up late reading or listening to an audio book in a dark room etc. to start to figure out whether it is the light's effect, or just being up late, for example.  And also hard to say, again, what is chicken and egg in terms of does the SP cause depression, or is its use the result of depression and a form of self-medicating.  But it may be a complicated mix as well.

 

Do your teens stay up very late reading or doing something in the dark?

 

My observation, limited thought that is, is that my ds stays up far later with electronics (in his case movies whether on SP or otherwise) than he does in other circumstances.

 

 

Another google hit I found:

 

 

The Korean Study

The research that has just been released is preliminary, and as yet unpublished. This means it is still pretty early to be making big generalizations, but the results are important nevertheless. Researchers at the Catholic University of Daegu in South Korea investigated 200 teens and demonstrated that those who used their smartphones the most also showed some troubling behaviors and psychological issues. These teens who were rated as high users of smartphones showed aggression, anxiety, depression, withdrawal, delinquent behavior and difficulty maintaining attention and concentration.

[Pen]

 

Edited August 6, 2017 by Pen

[Bluegoat]

There's also been some research showing that SP use has a dopamine releasing effect short term causing actual addiction...   What would that do on longer term?  If one needs one's fix increasingly as with other addictive behaviors?  Something on this might have been on a 60 Minutes program in recent times (say within last year)...   Or if I find other source, I'll let you know.

 

 

 

Googling I found:  http://zeenews.india.com/health/parents-take-note-excessive-use-of-smartphone-impacts-teenager-s-sleep-mood-and-mental-health-2010449

 

and  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/30/teenagers-sleep-quality-and-mental-health-at-risk-over-late-night-mobile-phone-use

 

It's very similar to gambling addiction, I think.

 

TBH the thing that most convinces me that there is really something that is going to be a problem going on with social media and gaming being a problem is that both are designed to create addictive behaviours.  It isn't chance that we see these outcomes, it's by design.

 

Smartphones really just make it possible to carry all that wherever you go.

[SKL]

I'd like to know how they even know how unhappy teens were decades ago.

 

My older brother, likely undiagnosed ASD, was part of the "unpopular crowd" if you can call it that.  He and his friends were as depressing as zombies.  They would sit playing video games etc. deep into the night, forgot to wash or change their clothes, were druggies or alcoholics or both, hated everything and everyone including themselves.  That was over 30 years ago.  A decade and a half later, my younger brother lost one close friend to suicide and another to AIDS.  My third brother, the oldest, left home rather than attend college because he wanted to be free to do the things my parents didn't approve.  He lived above a garage with a roommate who was often in jail for theft.  Myself, I was a loner and considered suicide often as a teen.  One of my best friends had anorexia and a nervous breakdown.  Another one ran away and was never heard from again.  Going back to my parents' generation, you have lots and lots of beatings and young people running away to get away from their parents.  My dad's undiagnosed dyslexia and lack of dental care; his sister's nervous breakdown, his brother leaving home at 17 to join the military; my mom's physical, mental and sexual abuse, neglect, and leaving home at 17 to marry; their friend being mistreated in an orphanage because her parents wouldn't take care of her; my uncles all being in reform school; 2 of my mom's cousins committing suicide; my aunt having discovered her mother's dead body after a suicide.  Everyone I know over the age of 40 having hated school, and quite a few failing or dropping out; lots of poverty and hopelessness.

 

I'm just not seeing all the happy happy the article implies existed in our past.  Whatever tools they are using to gauge this must be flawed.  Maybe the author fell for the Brady Bunch BS, but that has never been real life.  IMO she needs a little more experience before she earns her credibility badge.

[SKL]

And I meant to add that I don't see teens today remarkably unhappy.  Many of them seem to have a good sense of where they are going and how to get there.  Most of them appear at least as content as the average teen appeared when I was young.  Of course being a teen is hard, and it's supposed to be.  I just don't see that it's harder than it ever was before smartphones were invented.

[KathyBC]

I think fear based parenting is defiantly another aspect of teens being isolated.  

Change that to fear-based society and I'm in agreement.

[Bluegoat]

And I meant to add that I don't see teens today remarkably unhappy.  Many of them seem to have a good sense of where they are going and how to get there.  Most of them appear at least as content as the average teen appeared when I was young.  Of course being a teen is hard, and it's supposed to be.  I just don't see that it's harder than it ever was before smartphones were invented.

 

The th same way they know they are unhappy today?

 

There are direct polls/studies, some where people self-report, others where they answer questions - how often do you feel anxious?  How positive do you feel about the future?

 

You can also look at rates of specific problems the relates to unhappiness..  Depression.  Drop out rates.  Suicide.

 

Of course not everybody is unhappy now, nor was everyone happy before.

[Pen]

Correlation is not causation.

 

It doesn't take much thinking to flip these things around - maybe already depressed teens spend more time on their phones?

There are many more environmental factors affecting teens than just phone usage. Seems to me phones can function as a handy scapegoat. 

 

Why are we not looking at factors like our education systems? Our socio-economic or ecological systems? Our political systems, which can engender a sense of hopelessness in grown adults who never even saw a smart phone till their 40's? 

 

Seems to me the Millenials I know are worried by things like the gig economy, climate and ecological issues, housing affordability, corruption in high places...FOMO via smartphone doesn't even make the top ten.

 

 

Data on social media is all over the place, but generally, the last time I looked at meta-analyses (two years ago?) there was as much positive as negative data for effect of social media use on adolescents.

 

Girls with eating disorders were one group where the data was more conclusively negative about their FB use. 

 

It's simply not clear cut otherwise, other than to say the tendency is that a happy, well connected teen will tend to use social media in a way that enhances and extends their real life connections, whereas a depressed, isolated teen will tend to find their use more varied - it can be used to make and sustain connections, but also may magnify existing social and mental health problems (mostly by being used as a way of avoiding behavioural changes that might lead to more positive outcomes). 

 

As I said above, I think increasing screen time can act as a symptom - and so noticing and dealing with it can be useful - but it's a long way from that to proving causation. A really long way. For starters, how do you exclude environmental confounds?

 

Phone use has an opportunity cost, for sure, and that's always worth looking at. 

 

 

I meant stuff in peer reviewed journals. They aren't infallible either, far from it, but they are a better starting point than Mercola.

 

YMMV.

 

 

 

I'm unaware of such and am stopping looking at this point.

 

 

 

I think that your points have something to say for them--there are certainly issues about what is cause and what is effect, but then again you apparently deny knowing about causation re blue light (or indeed any light) and effects on sleep cycles.   -- unless a link to a peer reviewed journal can be provided for you?

 

And I think that is well known though I cannot point you to a research article.

 

Any light disturbs sleep due to disturbing melatonin and possibly for other reasons. This is even true for blind people according to, I believe, solid medical research, but no sorry, I haven't got links for you.

 

Disturbed sleep causes other problems, physical and emotional.  I think again this is pretty well documented though I cannot provide links.  

 

Surely it is known by many people including governments / military that get involved in such things that a form of torture can even be causing sleep deprivation.  ???  Or that from the flu of 1918, where people's sleep center was wiped out so that they could not sleep, even if they recovered from the flu they died from inability to sleep. ????

 

 

 

Blue light as from cell phones apparently is even worse than regular light.

 

 

 

If you search you could probably find things about this or related subjects even in peer reviewed sources.

 

 

 

 

But... well... we like our cell phones,don't we?  It is probably hard to hear anything negative about them.  I have that problem too.

 

And so saying, I'm going to get off now and go do something real and more healthful!

[SKL]

The th same way they know they are unhappy today?

 

There are direct polls/studies, some where people self-report, others where they answer questions - how often do you feel anxious?  How positive do you feel about the future?

 

You can also look at rates of specific problems the relates to unhappiness..  Depression.  Drop out rates.  Suicide.

 

Of course not everybody is unhappy now, nor was everyone happy before.

 

As far as self-reporting / surveys, first of all, who were they surveying "back then" and were they doing it the same way?  Secondly, were teens answering the same way?  Used to be socially unacceptable or "uncool" to admit a weakness such as anxiety.  Nowadays it's something everyone relates to.  Recently I heard a 5yo ask my daughter, "do you have anxiety about ___?  I do."

 

Spending lots of time on the internet may be encouraging young people to interact with that kind of language and so on, but that doesn't mean they are actually more depressed or anxious than previous generations.

 

I honestly find it hard to believe that this gen-x writer has source documents such as self-reporting and surveys from people of my parents' or my generation.  But even if she does, I don't think they are really comparable.

 

[SKL]

And also, rates of depression won't be accurate since most people were not diagnosed.  I'm not sure rates of suicide would be accurate either, because many times people would not want to report it that way, because suicide was considered an unforgivable sin or would make the family look bad.  Like many other statistics, the comparability between decades is doubtful.

[Pen]

It's very similar to gambling addiction, I think.

 

TBH the thing that most convinces me that there is really something that is going to be a problem going on with social media and gaming being a problem is that both are designed to create addictive behaviours.  It isn't chance that we see these outcomes, it's by design.

 

Smartphones really just make it possible to carry all that wherever you go.

 

 

And even with relatively positive things that may affect /seem useful in homeschool such as, say, duolingo, it probably works by a similar process.

[Pen]

 

The issues around blue light and sleep deprivation are not smart phone specific.

 

 

I usually find your posts very reasonable and helpful, but am missing your logic here.

 

 

 

That more than one thing can cause a problem does not negate the problem causing aspect of something does it?

 

 

If more than one thing leads to cancer, for example, does that make each of the individual items that do so safe?

 

If blue light and sleep issues exist and if smart phone use often happens by teens late at night, does the fact that it is not smart phone specific exculpate smart phones?

[SKL]

I dunno, I've been forced to have an up-to-date phone (for work) for probably 20+ years, and I have yet to get addicted to it.  It is a tool.  I finally figured out the GPS enough to prefer it to my bad sense of direction.  I like being able to leave my computer to go for walks since I can receive calls, texts, and emails if I'm supposed to be reachable.  I also like that my iphone tracks my steps so I can be happy about how far I walked.  I like that I can take a photo if something is extra cool, and share it if I think anyone would care about it.  If that makes me a mental case, I don't wanna be right.  :P

[Pen]

Its not hard at all. I've only  had a smart phone for the last 6 months, and I mostly enjoy it for the public transport app. Neither of my girls even have a smart phone, and ds only just got one and it hasn't impacted on his sleep or wellbeing. So, not personally defensive. 

 

 

 

 

It would be a very small study and not double-blind etc., but you'd be in a good position then to do a comparison.

 

How about deliberately increasing use to a teen average for USA  (I think it is 6 1/2 hours or so) daily, including late into the night, for a couple of years, and see whether it does or does not have an effect to the best you can determine as a tiny, but prospective study?

 

Maybe your girls could get SPs and join in, and also some others who are similarly not currently impacted, could also join in.

[SKL]

PS I used to be up until 4:30am many nights when I was a teen in the mid-1980s.  So again, I am not willing to blame it on smart phones.  If they weren't using their phones, would they be sleeping, or would they be watching the 2nd run of Charlie Rose or writing poetry or reading Austen or, gasp, doing their homework at the last minute like I did?

[SKL]

Wait, 6.5 hours of active iphone use per day is the US teen average?  I have trouble believing that.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I find the black and white arguments put forth to be strange. Most articles that I have seen about the bad effects of blue light on sleep just advise people to stop looking at screens with blue lights two to three hours before bed. Or switch your devices to night mode. I have never seen any of those articles advising people to throw out their smartphones. (I have no problem if someone wants to go to that extreme but am pointing out that it isn't what is usually advised. ).

 

I'm aware of my sleep needs and that if my children. I'm smart enough to put limits on it and I am pretty sure that I am far from the only parent to do so. I find the more extreme arguments of this sort to be of the "sky is falling" variety.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nart]

It has changed every generation! My 76 year old mother was over yesterday and when I told her lunch was ready, she said she just needed to finish reading her email. Then she came to the table and forgot she needed to send her sister a quick email so she got up from the table.

One of my reasons for signing up my kids for Little League baseball is that the 4 league baseball fields are at the end of a dead end canyon where there is NO internet reception and really spotty phone reception. Occasionally, texts come through but it isn't often. I love unplugging for 2 to 2 1/2 hours and watching them play. It is also nice to be able to talk to other families without phones going off, people texting, checking email, or posting on Facebook. I leave my smart phone in the car. The siblings of the kids not playing run amok back and forth between the fields,snack bar, and ravines. They climb trees and play pickup baseball games on the fields not being used. They make up games, argue with each other, figure out how to get along, and if any kid gets out of line, parents yell at kids that aren't necessarily their own to knock it off. It is the only place we go where I have no idea where my kid who doesn't have a baseball game is.

[Guest]

 

I honestly find it hard to believe that this gen-x writer has source documents such as self-reporting and surveys from people of my parents' or my generation.  But even if she does, I don't think they are really comparable.

 

 

 

It's not your generation, it's mine. There are definitely for sure studies from kids and teens in the 80's and 90's.

 

And part of the point is how QUICKLY it has gone downhill, concurrently with increased media interaction and decreased rw interaction.

 

"It" being happiness, health, hope and optimism, etc...

 

[Bluegoat]

As far as self-reporting / surveys, first of all, who were they surveying "back then" and were they doing it the same way?  Secondly, were teens answering the same way?  Used to be socially unacceptable or "uncool" to admit a weakness such as anxiety.  Nowadays it's something everyone relates to.  Recently I heard a 5yo ask my daughter, "do you have anxiety about ___?  I do."

 

Spending lots of time on the internet may be encouraging young people to interact with that kind of language and so on, but that doesn't mean they are actually more depressed or anxious than previous generations.

 

I honestly find it hard to believe that this gen-x writer has source documents such as self-reporting and surveys from people of my parents' or my generation.  But even if she does, I don't think they are really comparable.

 

The article wasn't actually talking about very long ago.  The jump, according to the author, was in 2010.

 

There is quite a lot of literature on how to compare happiness and perceptions of happiness over time.  It does have difficulties, but there are ways that researchers feel get at some useful and real information.  

 

Certainly there seems to be some real sense among mental health professionals that resilience is a serious problem among young people now, compared to previous generations.

[Bluegoat]

Wait, 6.5 hours of active iphone use per day is the US teen average?  I have trouble believing that.

 

That doesn't shock me at all.  I posted an article recently on the college board where they did a study on university students who had computers in class - they wanted ti know how much of the class was spent online on things other than actual class work.  Between the computer and their phones, the kids spent significantly more than half of their class time on tasks other than their lecture - card games, email, and mostly social media.

[SKL]

The article wasn't actually talking about very long ago.  The jump, according to the author, was in 2010.

 

There is quite a lot of literature on how to compare happiness and perceptions of happiness over time.  It does have difficulties, but there are ways that researchers feel get at some useful and real information.  

 

Certainly there seems to be some real sense among mental health professionals that resilience is a serious problem among young people now, compared to previous generations.

 

Resilience may be an issue, but I think that's more because of adults not allowing children to take risks, make mistakes, get hurt, and discover their inner strength.

 

Blaming it on smart phones is another excuse to protect our kids from yet another bogey man.

Edited August 7, 2017 by SKL

[KungFuPanda]

Part of me believes that a EVERY generation has a "thing" that destroys them. Dance halls, telephones, radio, rock n roll, television, trashy novels, free love, etc . . . Our great grand kids will be humping robots, then it's really all over!

[Arcadia]

Cyber bullying is also mentioned in this local news article besides using smartphones to cheat.

 

"U.S. teens think they are savvy about cybersecurity — so much that nearly one-third skirt school safeguards to access banned content and 29 percent admit to using tech devices to cheat in school — but more than twice that many say they know of classmates who have cheated with devices.

...

It’s easy, students say, to take a cell-phone photo of notes or test answers, then peek at it surreptitiously while taking a test. At the same time, they note, vigilant teachers notice those wayward glances.

...

So was the percent of teens who reported being cyberbullied: 30 percent in the United States, compared with 22 percent in the survey overall. Of the U.S. students who said they’d been victimized, half of those reported incidents before starting high school.

...

“It does surprise me, I’d expect it to be higher,†said Julia Kolman, 16, a rising senior at Branham High in San Jose. “A lot of people take to Twitter to create fake accounts or use personal accounts to harass other students.†Kolman herself doesn’t use social media much, but like many teens, hears about the repercussions and drama from it.

 

Among the platforms that the survey indicated are most used for cyberbullying among U.S. teens, Facebook appeared at the top with 71 percent, followed by Instagram with 62 percent and Snapchat with 49 percent.

 

Often only the most egregious harassment surfaces. Last year, police learned that boys at several Bay Area schools, including Mountain View High, were exchanging nude photos of female classmates via Dropbox. The previous year an Instagram exchange of explicit photos of female students was discovered at Lincoln High in San Jose. In February, Clayton Valley High in Concord shared a nude photo of an administrator. Last spring, Albany High students were suspended and expelled for racist memes of classmates on Instagram."

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/06/nearly-a-third-of-u-s-teens-use-electronics-to-cheat-survey-says/

[Bluegoat]

Resilience may be an issue, but I think that's more because of adults not allowing children to take risks, make mistakes, get hurt, and discover their inner strength.

 

Blaming it on smart phones is another excuse to protect our kids from yet another bogey man.

 

I think that personal phones have really enabled that kind of thing in the teen years.  You may not be able to force teens to stay at home, and it seems weird even to encourage that at that age, but you can give them a phone that means they are never really thrown upon their own resources, and never really alone.

[nixpix5]

I agree. Also people are more aware of the signs of depression now and are more likely to identify depression than in the past.

True but there is a fair amount of scientific data that supports technology being a cause for depression. Technology increases dopamine levels which in turn effect the synergistic serotonin system. Receptors become recycled and when not consuming tech it leads to agitation, depression, boredom, inattention to other life tasks and so forth. The data on this has been robust for almost 15 years. Many scientists, me included, tried desperately to get people to take this seriously for years. Now many labs are looking at it, but it will take another 5 years for the data to be published and released. Science moves slowly and by then it has effected an entire generation. We had the data but it was ignored until now.

Edited August 7, 2017 by nixpix5

[regentrude]

Wait, 6.5 hours of active iphone use per day is the US teen average?  I have trouble believing that.

 

Why? The average US adult spends 5 hours a day watching TV.

Smartphones can take over that function, but also so much more.

 

Also, it is a matter of definition. If a person conducts multiple texting conversations over the course of hours while doing other stuff unrelated to phone, do they count the entire time period, or just the seconds it takes to type and read the texts?

[SKL]

Also, it is a matter of definition. If a person conducts multiple texting conversations over the course of hours while doing other stuff unrelated to phone, do they count the entire time period, or just the seconds it takes to type and read the texts?

 

I was wondering that too.  I don't think it makes sense to count the whole time.  But it seems they have to be counting it that way.

 

Everyone I know is way too busy to sit and do nothing but play with their phone for 6.5 hours a day.

 

As for other screens, I agree and have said for years that giving our time to screens for so-called "entertainment" tends to depress our moods.  That's why I stopped watching TV long ago, and since I never have it on for my own purposes, my kids don't watch it much either.  However, that makes access to the internet more important, since the goal is not to live in a bubble.

 

Of course social media can impact our moods too, and this will vary based on the individual.  But like anything else, individuals need to learn what works for them via trial and error.  Parents can intervene if they strongly feel that their individual child has a problem with technology or playing cards or drugs or dark poetry or anything else.

 

I also think that the way this study was designed probably skewed the data.  If they are asking people via facebook messenger to tell them whether they're on fb and how they feel, they are basically encouraging people to check fb often and to give it more attention than they otherwise might.  People who don't waste time on media, because they are happy doing other things, are less likely to bother with the study.  It's like, one of my kids has this thing going with a game that prompts her to feed her dragon or whatever.  She asks to get on an iphone much more often than her sister, who isn't interested in such games.  The latter prefers to deal with people; the former is an introvert; so that might have something to do with their preferences.  But either way - if there were no dragon eggs / survey questions - the iphone would be consulted less.

 

I also notice they asked 12th graders a lot of the questions.  That would exclude all the kids who don't attend 12th grade for whatever reason.  This would ignore a disproportionate number of "not happy" people, and also, the results would vary with the high school graduation trends in whatever locations the questions were asked.

[Pen]

True but there is a fair amount of scientific data that supports technology being a cause for depression. Technology increased dopamine levels which in turn effect the synergistic serotonin system. Receptors become recycled and when not on tech it leads of agitation, depression, boredom, inattention to other life tasks and so forth. The data on this has been robust for almost 15 years. Many scientists, me included, tried desperately to get people to take this seriously for years. Now many labs are looking at it but it will take another 5 years for the data to be published and released. Science moves slowly and by then it has effected an entire generation. We had the data but it was ignored until now.

 

 

 

Or even more than one generation if there are DNA or similar type changes. This possibility and also EMF effects on living things beyond humans concerns me a great deal.

 

It may be hard to get data published and released if $$$ are against that.

 

My grandfather who was a scientist did research some 70 years ago or so that included finding out that cigarettes were dangerous long before that was accepted, but all he could really ever do was tell people he knew.  He could not get it published back then because the power structure, as well as maybe personal addictions, were against it.

 

 

Thanks for posting this.

[mlktwins]

https://www.amazon.com/Glow-Kids-Addiction-Hijacking-Kids/dp/1250097991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502126728&sr=8-1&keywords=glow+kids

 

I'm in the middle of this book.  My library has a copy.  Interesting read...

[Amy Elizabeth]

I get together with dozens of adults multiple times a week doing physical activities, such as tennis, yoga, swimming, and could also do aerobics but I don't like it. My kids are swimming in the local pool daily. No phones needed or useful.

 

Phones are all part of the social problem of too much sitting on our butts.

People are more than just physical bodies. I like to learn things, and generally speaking, what I want to learn about I cannot find locally. I use my phone for kindle books, audiobooks, to order physical books I can't get locally, how to videos, keeping up with our social events, and book/current event discussions. I have even used my phone to access yoga classes when I was homebound for my health.

 

If anything I think our society is more damaged by this idea that you are parenting right or you are parenting wrong, that electronics are good or electronics are bad, guns are good or guns are bad, liberals/conservatives are right or liberals/conservatives are wrong, your religion is right and you are going to heaven or your religion is wrong and you are going to hell, etc. People are not black or white. We come in all sorts of different shades and flavors. Learning to see what is beautiful in the differences and capitalizing on that instead of judging people (and their choices) as right or wrong....that is what helps kids to grow up to be good citizens that contribute to society....not how much time they spent on their phones or how much time they spent on their butts. There are plenty of people in the world that are physically disabled and they still have value. It's about relationships, not what you do or how you choose to do it.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Tapatalk

[Bluegoat]

I was wondering that too.  I don't think it makes sense to count the whole time.  But it seems they have to be counting it that way.

 

Everyone I know is way too busy to sit and do nothing but play with their phone for 6.5 hours a day.

 

As for other screens, I agree and have said for years that giving our time to screens for so-called "entertainment" tends to depress our moods.  That's why I stopped watching TV long ago, and since I never have it on for my own purposes, my kids don't watch it much either.  However, that makes access to the internet more important, since the goal is not to live in a bubble.

 

Of course social media can impact our moods too, and this will vary based on the individual.  But like anything else, individuals need to learn what works for them via trial and error.  Parents can intervene if they strongly feel that their individual child has a problem with technology or playing cards or drugs or dark poetry or anything else.

 

I also think that the way this study was designed probably skewed the data.  If they are asking people via facebook messenger to tell them whether they're on fb and how they feel, they are basically encouraging people to check fb often and to give it more attention than they otherwise might.  People who don't waste time on media, because they are happy doing other things, are less likely to bother with the study.  It's like, one of my kids has this thing going with a game that prompts her to feed her dragon or whatever.  She asks to get on an iphone much more often than her sister, who isn't interested in such games.  The latter prefers to deal with people; the former is an introvert; so that might have something to do with their preferences.  But either way - if there were no dragon eggs / survey questions - the iphone would be consulted less.

 

I also notice they asked 12th graders a lot of the questions.  That would exclude all the kids who don't attend 12th grade for whatever reason.  This would ignore a disproportionate number of "not happy" people, and also, the results would vary with the high school graduation trends in whatever locations the questions were asked.

 

That seems like quite a reach.

[Guest]

The article does not describe access to yoga videos as harmful, nor does it prescribe banning phones.

[Amy Elizabeth]

The article does not describe access to yoga videos as harmful, nor does it prescribe banning phones.

I was commenting on a comment not the article.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Tapatalk

[nixpix5]

Or even more than one generation if there are DNA or similar type changes. This possibility and also EMF effects on living things beyond humans concerns me a great deal.

 

It may be hard to get data published and released if $$$ are against that.

 

My grandfather who was a scientist did research some 70 years ago or so that included finding out that cigarettes were dangerous long before that was accepted, but all he could really ever do was tell people he knew. He could not get it published back then because the power structure, as well as maybe personal addictions, were against it.

Thanks for posting this.

It still works like this. Grant money is scientists' livelihood and only certain things get funding. If it will be culturally unpopular then it doesn't get funded and findings get buried. If it will hurt an industry (such as tech) it often doesn't get the funding. It is now but it took so many years. Many people don't realize the logistics of science. They picture people doing experiments for the pursuit of truth and that just doesn't happen. It is funded and funneled toward what the zeitgeist of the era wants and if a scientist wants to keep getting funded they better not find or try to publish something that doesn't support existing thought. This is why I left science and became a therapist. More good can be done helping people recover from the things in our society that mess them up.

[MBM]

It still works like this. Grant money is scientists' livelihood and only certain things get funding. If it will be culturally unpopular then it doesn't get funded and findings get buried. If it will hurt an industry (such as tech) it often doesn't get the funding. It is now but it took so many years. Many people don't realize the logistics of science. They picture people doing experiments for the pursuit of truth and that just doesn't happen. It is funded and funneled toward what the zeitgeist of the era wants and if a scientist wants to keep getting funded they better not find or try to publish something that doesn't support existing thought. This is why I left science and became a therapist. More good can be done helping people recover from the things in our society that mess them up.

1,000 times yes. So very true.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Or even more than one generation if there are DNA or similar type changes. This possibility and also EMF effects on living things beyond humans concerns me a great deal.

 

It may be hard to get data published and released if $$$ are against that.

 

My grandfather who was a scientist did research some 70 years ago or so that included finding out that cigarettes were dangerous long before that was accepted, but all he could really ever do was tell people he knew.  He could not get it published back then because the power structure, as well as maybe personal addictions, were against it.

 

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

As I said in my first post (I think) in this thread, Smartphones are a tool.  They have redeemable value as a tool that I do not think that cigarettes have (despite some people thinking that cigarettes help with weight loss etc).  Do I think that we should be aware of the possibility of depression in general and depression specifically tied to technology?  Sure.  And do I think that there should be some balance in how people use Smartphones or social media or anything for that matter?  Sure.  Will some people choose not to use them at all because they don't want the risk at all of depression from technology or "being destroyed" (which for the record is a very unobjective conclusion for a researcher to come to)?  Sure, just like some people choose to eat no meat or to drink no alcohol or any other thing which might be considered ok in moderation by most people but do have some risks involved.  Just like anything - some people are better at moderating their use of things - perhaps some more than other.  And it may very well ebb and flow as well as people are initially enamored with and then get tired of their shiny new toy. 

 

I do not think that this was a balanced article.  It smacks too much of Chicken Little to me so I'm not going to run out to grab Smartphones from the hands of all the adolescents I know.  Some of the responses to this thread are not all that balanced either.  But other than pointing that out, I really don't care if others don't want to use Smartphones or any technology for that matter.  I assume that people are going to make choices that work best for their family. 

 

My Smartphone has made my life easier in many ways.  I did very well without it and if something happened so that I couldn't have one it wouldn't be the end of the world.  But I do appreciate them as a very useful tool.  My kids have found Smartphones to be helpful as well.  And we've found them helpful as a family - as in allowing us to schedule and do things as a family - not just as individuals. 

 

edited because grammar matters. 

Edited August 7, 2017 by Jean in Newcastle

[TravelingChris]

I am always aware of the depression/facebook links.  There have been articles saying it isn't even just teens but people all ages who are depressed from facebook.  I am really skeptical about those studies.  Wouldn't it depend on who you are following and what issues you are following?  For the most part, I have facebook friends who are also happy in their real lives.  I guess if I was a certain type of person, I could see all those facebook posts about nice walks, travels, pets, etc, to be something to get depressed about if I didn't go on a nice walk that day or didn't travel that day or don't have a cute pet.  But I really have to think it is about the person.  The person who is already depressed will find items to confirm their sad existence.  I am not depressed and am not petty minded so I am pleased my friends got to travel someplace nice or have a nice pet or went on a nice walk.  If anything, it makes me happier to hear about good things happening to others.  In terms of following things, I follow some birding sites, some national park sites, some gardening sites, etc. so I get lots of beautiful pictures and videos.  My friends also follow cool things that are often very hopeful so again more items to make me happy. 

 

But like others on here have said, we all make our choices of what we do and what we view.  We can use that smart phone to remind us to take our medicines and to keep in touch with our family or we can use it to take photographs of horrific crimes we do.  But isn't that the same with so many things- cars can be used to transport people or run people over--- airplanes can fly a bunch of people to a wonderful destination or fly a bunch of people into a high rise tower.

 

Use your smartphone wisely, just as you should use your computer wisely and everything else wisely.

 

As to teens doing unproductive things-  I was a very productive teen and yet I still had enough time to do some pleasurable, unproductive things like listen to am stations from far away after sunset and read lots of mysteries and watch some tv.  Actually my tv watching proved productive (and I lived in an era where too much tv watching was the concern then)-  it gave me my introduction to economics (and I majored in that in college) and also made me aware of the University I ended up going to, and my admissions essay was about two British comedies I watched.

[Bluegoat]

As I said in my first post (I think) in this thread, Smartphones are a tool.  They have redeemable value as a tool that I do not think that cigarettes have (despite some people thinking that cigarettes help with weight loss etc).  Do I think that we should be aware of the possibility of depression in general and depression specifically tied to technology?  Sure.  And do I think that there should be some balance in how people use Smartphones or social media or anything for that matter?  Sure.  Will some people choose not to use them at all because they don't want the risk at all of depression from technology or "being destroyed" (which for the record is a very unobjective conclusion for a researcher to come to)?  Sure, just like some people choose to eat no meat or to drink no alcohol or any other thing which might be considered ok in moderation by most people but do have some risks involved.  Just like anything - some people are better at moderating their use of things - perhaps some more than other.  And it may very well ebb and flow as well as people are initially enamored with and then get tired of their shiny new toy. 

 

I do not think that this was a balanced article.  It smacks too much of Chicken Little to me so I'm not going to run out to grab Smartphones from the hands of all the adolescents I know.  Some of the responses to this thread are not all that balanced either.  But other than pointing that out, I really don't care if others don't want to use Smartphones or any technology for that matter.  I assume that people are going to make choices that work best for their family. 

 

My Smartphone has made my life easier in many ways.  I did very well without it and if something happened so that I couldn't have one it wouldn't be the end of the world.  But I do appreciate them as a very useful tool.  My kids have found Smartphones to be helpful as well.  And we've found them helpful as a family - as in allowing us to schedule and do things as a family - not just as individuals. 

 

edited because grammar matters. 

 

That something is a tool really doesn't say much about the severity or scope of it's dangers.  Zeppelins were a tool, but they tended to explode people, so they stopped using them.  A drug is a tool, but they may find it has downsides or effects that were not anticipated and make it risky or even unusable.  

 

One of the unfortunate aspects of our economic system is that there is really little or no change for us as a society to study, consider, or assess the wider cultural or social effects of technologies, or even the psychological or mental effects.  Only the most obvious health effects seem to be valid reasons for limiting technology.

 

Instead, people looking to make money make these decisions and appeal to individuals entirely on the level of individual desire for a product.  By the time any wider effects are known about or assessed, the new technology has already become embedded in the culture and economy.  There is simply no possibility or mechanism for a wider reflection and limiting.

 

And as nixpix (I think) pointed out above, when we are talking about a technology that changes the brain, you ay soon have a situation where everyone has been affected and the baseline for "normal" has changed.

[Jean in Newcastle]

That something is a tool really doesn't say much about the severity or scope of it's dangers.  Zeppelins were a tool, but they tended to explode people, so they stopped using them.  A drug is a tool, but they may find it has downsides or effects that were not anticipated and make it risky or even unusable.  

 

One of the unfortunate aspects of our economic system is that there is really little or no change for us as a society to study, consider, or assess the wider cultural or social effects of technologies, or even the psychological or mental effects.  Only the most obvious health effects seem to be valid reasons for limiting technology.

 

Instead, people looking to make money make these decisions and appeal to individuals entirely on the level of individual desire for a product.  By the time any wider effects are known about or assessed, the new technology has already become embedded in the culture and economy.  There is simply no possibility or mechanism for a wider reflection and limiting.

 

And as nixpix (I think) pointed out above, when we are talking about a technology that changes the brain, you ay soon have a situation where everyone has been affected and the baseline for "normal" has changed.

 

Then don't use them.  But I have been teaching and interacting with teens for over 30 years professionally.  I have no problem as a parent with moderating the use of what I see as a helpful tool.  I don't think that they have as bad a harmful effect as the author of this article implies - even when I look at his graphs - partly because he's not limiting variables to only that of Smartphones and is sensationalizing things.  I object to this article as junk "science".