The Happiest Teens Use Smartphones, Digital Media Less Than An Hour A Day
The Happiest Teens Use Smartphones, Digital Media Less
Than An Hour A Day
24 Mar 2018 - by Study Finds
SAN DIEGO — Worried about your child’s smartphone use
getting out of hand? You should be. A new study finds that teens who are hooked
on their phones and other digital devices are “markedly” unhappier than their
less-plugged-in peers.
Researchers from San Diego State University and the
University of Georgia examined data on more than a million 8th, 10th, and 12th
grade American students participating in the longterm “Monitoring the Future”
study. Participants were polled on their mobile device and computer use and
their amount of face-to-face social interaction with others. They were also
surveyed on their level of overall happiness.
The authors found that teens who spent more time hanging
out with friends in person and less time texting or video chatting were happier
than those who spent more time in front of a screen. There was a notable
increase in overall life satisfaction for students who participated in more
extracurricular activities or sports, as well as those who read actual print
publications more frequently. The research team believes that habitual use of
smartphones or computers to socialize was a key factor in how unhappy a
participant felt.
“The key to digital media use and happiness is limited
use,” says Jean M. Twenge, the study’s lead author a professor of psychology at
SDSU, in a news release. “Aim to spend no more than two hours a day on digital
media, and try to increase the amount of time you spend seeing friends
face-to-face and exercising — two activities reliably linked to greater
happiness.”
And while Twenge suggests allowing a maximum of two hours
for screen time, she says the study showed that the happiest teens were those
who spent a tad less than an hour per day on digital media. That statistic
includes teens who report not using digital devices at all — which means some
use of technology makes children happier. But after that first hour,
unhappiness rose steadily among participants as their total screen time
increased.
Twenge notes that while some studies have proven social
media use can lead to greater unhappiness for a child, the study showed that
being unhappy did not lead to more social media use.
Not surprisingly, the authors point out that studies have
shown self-esteem and life satisfaction levels dropped sharply after 2012,
which is the same year that the number of Americans who owned a smartphone
jumped over 50 percent. To that point, her study only adds to the wealth of
work that’s determined parents must monitor how much time their teens are
spending online.
“The advent of the smartphone is the most plausible
explanation for the sudden decrease in teens’ psychological well-being,” she
says.
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