This link has been bookmarked by 729 people . It was first bookmarked on 03 Aug 2017, by Javier Pastor.
-
27 Jul 22
-
16 Mar 22
-
27 Jun 21
-
06 Mar 20
-
18 Oct 19
Like most everyone, I've noticed changes in my classes and students since smartphones have become ubiquitous. Here are some articles that look not specifically at technology in education but at how these new everyday technologies are affecting young people in general... I think as educators we should be aware of this research and keep it in mind as we think about how to best use technology in our work with said young people.
-
14 Oct 19
-
03 Jul 19Eric Langhorst
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? https://t.co/w9JP6m3GWA https://t.co/ZmViUlTjrw
-
09 Jun 19
-
02 Jun 19
-
25 Apr 19
-
Snapstreaks
-
Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation
-
Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states
-
many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear
-
The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world
-
teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time
-
What happened in 2012
-
it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent
-
theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media
-
Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones
-
iGen
-
do not remember a time before the internet
-
iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010
-
The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011.
-
It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
-
the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever
-
There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
-
The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.
-
iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much.
-
The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half.
-
Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.
-
iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.
So what are they doing with all that time? They are on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed.
-
She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat.
-
The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015
-
The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness.
-
Of course, these analyses don’t unequivocally prove that screen time causes unhappiness; it’s possible that unhappy teens spend more time online.
-
recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness
-
Social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation.
-
at the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
-
Once again, the effect of screen activities is unmistakable: The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
-
Depression and suicide have many causes; too much technology is clearly not the only one.
-
For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out.
-
Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups.
-
This trend has been especially steep among girls.
-
Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys.
-
cyberbullying
-
Boys tend to bully one another physically
-
girls are more likely to do so by undermining a victim’s social status or relationships
-
what they do with their phone while they sleep
-
Their answers were a profile in obsession
-
Others saw their phone as an extension of their body
-
Many now sleep less than seven hours most nights.
-
Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night
-
a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived
-
Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991.
-
But more seems to be at stake in urging teens to use their phone responsibly, and there are benefits to be gained even if all we instill in our children is the importance of moderation.
-
Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits.
-
-
20 Apr 19
-
30 Mar 19
-
25 Mar 19
-
14 Feb 19David Goodrich
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis. One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Hou…
via PocketHave Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? February 14, 2019 at 06:10PM -
29 Dec 18
-
11 Dec 18
-
17 Nov 18
-
17 Oct 18sammywolf10
This article states many reasons as to why this generation isn’t like most generations. The author of this article studied the way teenagers emotions and behaviors change and has linked it to cell phone usage. Teenagers today spent their time a lot differently than teenagers once did, they sit on their phones and interact online but not face to face. The author uses few examples of when she was a teenager and how teens back then acted versus now. I can use this in my research paper because it can easily help guide me into how cell phones have shaped us today.
-
28 Sep 18
-
04 Sep 18
-
kids who spend more time online are lonelier than kids who spend less time online.
-
So is depression. Once again, the effect of screen activities is unmistakable: The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
-
hat’s the connection between smartphones and the apparent psychological distress this generation is experiencing? For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out.
-
the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep:
-
Electronic devices and social media seem to have an especially strong ability to disrupt sleep.
-
Even Steve Jobs limited his kids’ use of the devices he brought into the world.
-
The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices.
-
-
11 Aug 18
-
29 Jul 18
-
I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
-
The allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens.
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011.
-
The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
-
28 Jul 18Michael Dudek
Parents! This is mind blowing and a must read! We need to find ways to reduce phone time! ....Scary.... https://t.co/5z4JkuHszi
-
11 May 18
-
30 Mar 18Rachel Thompson
What an intriguing article! Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? #LiteracyPromise #alpineschools
https://t.co/9HJ8iIgd6a -
27 Mar 18
-
20 Mar 18
-
27 Jan 18
-
26 Jan 18
-
23 Jan 18
-
Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear.
-
-
19 Jan 18
-
Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said.
-
We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
-
but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.
-
Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states.
-
But the impact of these devices has not been fully appreciated, and goes far beyond the usual concerns about curtailed attention spans.
-
These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone.
-
Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011
-
It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.
-
-
16 Jan 18Laura M
Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they’re unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time.
But at the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
So is depression. Once again, the effect of screen activities is unmistakable: The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression. Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework more than the average teen cut their risk significantly.
Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.
This trend has been especially steep among girls. Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys. Girls use social media more often, giving them additional opportunities to feel excluded and lonely when they see their friends or classmates getting together without them. Social media levy a psychic tax on the teen doing the posting as well, as she anxiously awaits the affirmation of comments and likes.
These more dire consequences for teenage girls could also be rooted in the fact that they’re more likely to experience cyberbullying. Boys tend to bully one another physically, while girls are more likely to do so by undermining a victim’s social status or relationships. Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform on which to carry out the style of aggression they favor, ostracizing and excluding other girls around the clock.teens pre-teens social media facebook instagram bullying depression mental health suicide demographics gender millenials gen-i
-
10 Jan 18
-
she’s had an iPhone since she was 11
-
on their phones, unchaperoned
-
how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other
-
I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology
-
-
02 Jan 18
-
25 Dec 17Henri Lefèvre
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis. One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Hou…
-
24 Dec 17
-
22 Dec 17
-
21 Dec 17Dennis Schaeffer
"One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”"
-
17 Dec 17
-
16 Dec 17
-
15 Dec 17Trey Mitchell
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis. One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Hou…
-
14 Dec 17
-
21 Nov 17
-
11 Nov 17
-
I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.
-
The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.
-
a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media
-
iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010. A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone
-
-
07 Nov 17
-
30 Oct 17
-
27 Oct 17
-
26 Oct 17
-
25 Oct 17
-
24 Oct 17Tom Musk
This is a great article talking about the mental toll of social media. Essentially, the Facebook generation is experiencing a degree of depression unprecedented in recent history
-
But it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent
-
The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.
-
More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
-
There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
-
But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents.
-
The teen birth rate hit an all-time low in 2016, down 67 percent since its modern peak, in 1991
-
But iGen teens aren’t working
-
Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again
-
this means iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.
-
In this, too, she is typical. The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently.
-
The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy
-
All screen activities are linked to less happiness
-
and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness
-
But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness.
-
Social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation.
-
So is depression. Once again, the effect of screen activities is unmistakable: The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression
-
As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves.
-
For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out
-
Girls have also borne the brunt of the rise in depressive symptoms among today’s teens. Boys’ depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls’ increased by 50 percent—more than twice as much
-
cyberbullying
-
Nearly all slept with their phone, putting it under their pillow, on the mattress, or at the very least within arm’s reach of the bed
-
today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were.
-
It may be a comfort, but the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep
-
Sleep deprivation is linked to myriad issues, including compromised thinking and reasoning, susceptibility to illness, weight gain, and high blood pressure.
-
What’s at stake isn’t just how kids experience adolescence. The constant presence of smartphones is likely to affect them well into adulthood
-
Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform on which to carry out the style of aggression they favor, ostracizing and excluding other girls around the clock
-
-
23 Oct 17
-
Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. (That’s much more than the risk related to, say, watching TV.)
-
-
21 Oct 17sunil-joglekar
"More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis."
-
20 Oct 17Jelmer Evers
Indrukwekkend verhaal. Het is even doorlezen maar zeer de moeite waard.
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
https://t.co/f99xWjs9OA -
16 Oct 17danfam1102
How this generation depends on electronics
-
Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011.
-
12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.
-
Today’s teens are also less likely to date.
-
kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation.
-
Even driving, a symbol of adolescent freedom inscribed in American popular culture, from Rebel Without a Cause to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, has lost its appeal for today’s teens.
-
teens described getting their license as something to be nagged into by their parents—a notion that would have been unthinkable to previous generations.
-
In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar. But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much.
-
In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did.
-
But eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X teens did in the early 1990s.
-
The time that seniors spend on activities such as student clubs and sports and exercise has changed little in recent years. Combined with the decline in working for pay, this means iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.
-
ironies of iGen life is that despite spending far more time under the same roof as their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were
-
“I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay, whatever’ while they’re on their phones.
-
She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat. “I’ve been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people,”
-
The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015
-
they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.
-
The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
it’s possible that unhappy teens spend more time online. But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness.
-
The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they felt, but feeling unhappy did not subsequently lead to more Facebook use.
-
Social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation.
-
Teens who visit social-networking sites every day but see their friends in person less frequently are the most likely to agree with the statements “A lot of times I feel lonely,” “I often feel left out of things,” and “I often wish I had more good friends.” Teens’ feelings of loneliness spiked in 2013 and have remained high since.
-
But at the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
-
The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
-
heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework more than the average teen cut their risk significantly.
-
three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan.
-
but the suicide rate has increased.
-
In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.
-
Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook.
-
the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.
-
Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys. Girls use social media more often, giving them additional opportunities to feel excluded and lonely when they see their friends or classmates getting together without them.
-
“I’m nervous about what people think and are going to say. It sometimes bugs me when I don’t get a certain amount of likes on a picture.”
-
Boys’ depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls’ increased by 50 percent—more than twice as much.
-
Boys tend to bully one another physically, while girls are more likely to do so by undermining a victim’s social status or relationships.
-
Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform on which to carry out the style of aggression they favor, ostracizing and excluding other girls around the clock.
-
Why, I wondered, would anyone sleep with her phone beside her in bed? It’s not as though you can surf the web while you’re sleeping. And who could slumber deeply inches from a buzzing phone?
-
Nearly all slept with their phone, putting it under their pillow, on the mattress, or at the very least within arm’s reach of the bed. They checked social media right before they went to sleep, and reached for their phone as soon as they woke up in the morning
-
Some used the language of addiction. “I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help it,” one said about looking at her phone while in bed. Others saw their phone as an extension of their body—or even like a lover: “Having my phone closer to me while I’m sleeping is a comfort.”
-
Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. In just the four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.
-
Sleep deprivation is linked to myriad issues, including compromised thinking and reasoning, susceptibility to illness, weight gain, and high blood pressure. It also affects mood: People who don’t sleep enough are prone to depression and anxiety.
-
Smartphones could be causing lack of sleep, which leads to depression, or the phones could be causing depression, which leads to lack of sleep.
-
Adolescence is a key time for developing social skills; as teens spend less time with their friends face-to-face, they have fewer opportunities to practice them. In the next decade, we may see more adults who know just the right emoji for a situation, but not the right facial expression.
-
The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices. Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits.
-
-
15 Oct 17
-
10 Oct 17
-
09 Oct 17
-
08 Oct 17
-
28 Sep 17
-
she’s had an iPhone since she was 11
-
-
27 Sep 17
-
Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so
-
Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation, but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out
-
many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear
-
The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world
-
teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them
-
exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent
-
I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet
-
The Millennials grew up with the web as well, but it wasn’t ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night
-
iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010
-
A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone
-
goes far beyond the usual concerns about curtailed attention spans. The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone.
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable
-
It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones
-
teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011
-
There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy
-
the adolescent Boomers gaze at Yates’s camera with the self-confidence born of making your own choices
-
Fifteen years later, during my own teenage years as a member of Generation X, smoking had lost some of its romance, but independence was definitely still in
-
But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens
-
Today’s teens are also less likely to date.
-
kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation.
-
The decline in dating tracks with a decline in sexual activity. The drop is the sharpest for ninth-graders, among whom the number of sexually active teens has been cut by almost 40 percent since 1991. The average teen now has had sex for the first time by the spring of 11th grade, a full year later than the average Gen Xer. Fewer teens having sex has contributed to what many see as one of the most positive youth trends in recent years: The teen birth rate hit an all-time low in 2016, down 67 percent since its modern peak, in 1991
-
Even driving,
-
has lost its appeal
-
Independence isn’t free
-
But as they left their teenage years behind, Gen Xers married and started careers later than their Boomer predecessors had.
-
Gen X managed to stretch adolescence beyond all previous limits: Its members started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later
-
Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed
-
Childhood now stretches well into high school.
-
Why are today’s teens waiting longer to take on both the responsibilities and the pleasures of adulthood?
-
Teens, in turn, seem to be content with this homebody arrangement—not because they’re so studious, but because their social life is lived on their phone. They don’t need to leave home to spend time with their friends
-
But eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X teens did
-
iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less
-
So what are they doing with all that time? They are on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed.
-
The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.
-
You might expect that teens spend so much time in these new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data suggest that it does not.
-
Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness
-
Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they’re unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time.
-
If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen
-
But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappines
-
The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they felt,
-
Social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation. Teens who visit social-networking sites every day but see their friends in person less frequently are the most likely to agree with the statements “A lot of times I feel lonely,” “I often feel left out of things,” and “I often wish I had more good friends.” Teens’ feelings of loneliness spiked in 2013 and have remained high since.
-
But at the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
So is depression
-
Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework more than the average teen cut their risk significantly.
Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan
-
As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves
-
In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.
-
hat’s the connection between smartphones and the apparent psychological distress this generation is experiencing? For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out.
-
Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.
-
especially steep among girls
-
It may be a comfort, but the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep:
-
In just the four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.
The increase is suspiciously timed, once again starting around when most teens got a smartphone. Two national surveys show that teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices are 28 percent more likely to get less than seven hours of sleep than those who spend fewer than three hours, and teens who visit social-media sites every day are 19 percent more likely to be sleep deprived
-
Children who use a media device right before bed are more likely to sleep less than they should, more likely to sleep poorly, and more than twice as likely to be sleepy during the day.
-
Electronic devices and social media seem to have an especially strong ability to disrupt sleep
-
Sleep deprivation is linked to myriad issues, including compromised thinking and reasoning, susceptibility to illness, weight gain, and high blood pressure. It also affects mood: People who don’t sleep enough are prone to depression and anxiety
-
he correlations between depression and smartphone use are strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone
-
Even Steve Jobs limited his kids’ use of the devices he brought into the world.
-
Prying the phone out of our kids’ hands will be difficult,
-
But more seems to be at stake in urging teens to use their phone responsibly
-
there are benefits to be gained even if all we instill in our children is the importance of moderation
-
Significant effects on both mental health and sleep time appear after two or more hours a day on electronic devices
-
The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices. Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits
-
-
26 Sep 17Amped Status
"Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
Even when a seismic event—a war, a technological leap, a free concert in the mud—plays an outsize role in shaping a group of young people, no single factor ever defines a generation. Parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture, and these things matter. But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy." -
-
There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
-
-
25 Sep 17
-
20 Sep 17
-
18 Sep 17
-
david williams
Electronic devices and social media seem to have an especially strong ability to disrupt sleep.
-
17 Sep 17
-
13 Sep 17Andrea Saveri
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.smartphones technology psychology generation smartphone mental-health anxiety emotion SEL
-
11 Sep 17
-
10 Sep 17
-
One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena
-
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
-
More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned.
-
But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis
-
I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
-
The advent of the smartphone and its cousin the tablet was followed quickly by hand-wringing about the deleterious effects of “screen time.”
-
to drinking’s attendant ills.
-
Gen X managed to stretch adolescence beyond all previous limits: Its members started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later.
-
If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen.
-
-
09 Sep 17
-
08 Sep 17
-
06 Sep 17Kirk Johnson
Reading: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? Must read via @jean_twenge https://t.co/CiUjrURkI0?
Some alarming statistics via @jean_twenge https://t.co/CiUjrURkI0? What should our response be as educators? https://t.co/7FfEqIsxWH -
05 Sep 17
-
01 Sep 17
-
31 Aug 17Cathy Stutzman
Generation researcher discusses the iGeneration and its reliance on smartphones, its benefits, and its drawbacks.
-
29 Aug 17
-
28 Aug 17
-
Even when a seismic event—a war, a technological leap, a free concert in the mud—plays an outsize role in shaping a group of young people, no single factor ever defines a generation. Parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture, and these things matter. But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
-
But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.
-
One of the ironies of iGen life is that despite spending far more time under the same roof as their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were. “I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay, whatever’ while they’re on their phones. They don’t pay attention to their family.” Like her peers, Athena is an expert at tuning out her parents so she can focus on her phone. She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat. “I’ve been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people,” she said. “My bed has, like, an imprint of my body.”
-
There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they’re unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time.
-
-
27 Aug 17
-
25 Aug 17
-
24 Aug 17
-
22 Aug 17Paul Jaeger
"It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades." https://t.co/ZAANRcmqJF
-
21 Aug 17jacob_
"At first I presumed these might be blips, but the trends persisted, across several years and a series of national surveys. The changes weren’t just in degree, but in kind. The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.
What happened in 2012 to cause such "-
At first I presumed these might be blips, but the trends persisted, across several years and a series of national surveys. The changes weren’t just in degree, but in kind. The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.
What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior? It was after the Great Recession, which officially lasted from 2007 to 2009 and had a starker effect on Millennials trying to find a place in a sputtering economy. But it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.
-
I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet.
-
more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone.
-
The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.
-
. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone.
-
They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.
-
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011.
-
Today’s teens are also less likely to date. The initial stage of courtship, which Gen Xers called “liking” (as in “Ooh, he likes you!”), kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation. After two teens have “talked” for a while, they might start dating. But only about 56 percent of high-school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent.
-
Even driving, a symbol of adolescent freedom inscribed in American popular culture, from Rebel Without a Cause to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, has lost its appeal for today’s teens. Nearly all Boomer high-school students had their driver’s license by the spring of their senior year; more than one in four teens today still lack one at the end of high school. For some, Mom and Dad are such good chauffeurs that there’s no urgent need to drive. “My parents drove me everywhere and never complained, so I always had rides,” a 21-year-old student in San Diego told me. “I didn’t get my license until my mom told me I had to because she could not keep driving me to school.” She finally got her license six months after her 18th birthday. In conversation after conversation, teens described getting their license as something to be nagged into by their parents—a notion that would have been unthinkable to previous generation
-
Independence isn’t free—you need some money in your pocket to pay for gas, or for that bottle of schnapps. In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar. But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much. In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half. These declines accelerated during the Great Recession, but teen employment has not bounced back, even though job availability has.
-
Gen X managed to stretch adolescence beyond all previous limits: Its members started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later. Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.
-
In this, too, she is typical. The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out. That’s something most teens used to do: nerds and jocks, poor kids and rich kids, C students and A students. The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.
-
You might expect that teens spend so much time in these new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data suggest that it does not.
-
Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they’re unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time.
-
This doesn’t always mean that, on an individual level, kids who spend more time online are lonelier than kids who spend less time online. Teens who spend more time on social media also spend more time with their friends in person, on average—highly social teens are more social in both venues, and less social teens are less so. But at the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
-
Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.
-
This trend has been especially steep among girls. Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys.
-
Boys’ depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls’ increased by 50 percent—more than twice as much. The rise in suicide, too, is more pronounced among girls. Although the rate increased for both sexes, three times as many 12-to-14-year-old girls killed themselves in 2015 as in 2007, compared with twice as many boys. The suicide rate is still higher for boys, in part because they use more-lethal methods, but girls are beginning to close the gap.
-
These more dire consequences for teenage girls could also be rooted in the fact that they’re more likely to experience cyberbullying. Boys tend to bully one another physically, while girls are more likely to do so by undermining a victim’s social status or relationships. Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform on which to carry out the style of aggression they favor, ostracizing and excluding other girls around the clock.
-
It may be a comfort, but the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep: Many now sleep less than seven hours most nights. Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night; a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived. Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. In just the four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.
-
Sleep deprivation is linked to myriad issues, including compromised thinking and reasoning, susceptibility to illness, weight gain, and high blood pressure. It also affects mood: People who don’t sleep enough are prone to depression and anxiety. Again, it’s difficult to trace the precise paths of causation. Smartphones could be causing lack of sleep, which leads to depression, or the phones could be causing depression, which leads to lack of sleep. Or some other factor could be causing both depression and sleep deprivation to rise. But the smartphone, its blue light glowing in the dark, is likely playing a nefarious role
-
-
-
ne day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”
Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
-
I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs,
-
but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.
-
What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior? It was after the Great Recession, which officially lasted from 2007 to 2009 and had a starker effect on Millennials trying to find a place in a sputtering economy. But it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.
-
These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone.
-
Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.
-
Today’s teens are also less likely to date. The initial stage of courtship, which Gen Xers called “liking” (as in “Ooh, he likes you!”), kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation. After two teens have “talked” for a while, they might start dating
-
social life is lived on their phone. They don’t need to leave home to spend time with their friends.
-
The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out. That’s something most teens used to do: nerds and jocks, poor kids and rich kids, C students and A students. The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.
-
The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
-
And the teen suicide rate was even higher in the 1990s, long before smartphones existed. Then again, about four times as many Americans now take antidepressants, which are often effective in treating severe depression, the type most strongly linked to suicide.
-
It may be a comfort, but the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep: Many now sleep less than seven hours most nights. Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night; a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived
-
depression and smartphone use are strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone. As the technology writer Nick Bilton has reported, it’s a policy some Silicon Valley executives follow. Even Steve Jobs limited his kids’ use of the devices he brought into the world.
-
-
Grant Frend
"More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are [...] on the brink of a #mentalhealth crisis." https://t.co/T55YQoCSYa.
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.