NPR: The Scientific Debate Over Teens, Screens And Mental Health

More teens and young adults — particularly girls and young women — are reporting being depressed and anxious, compared with comparable numbers from the mid-2000s. Suicides are up too in that time period, most noticeably among girls ages 10 to 14.
These trends are the basis of a scientific controversy.

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Parents, Sometimes You're The Problem When It Comes To Tech Use
One hypothesis that has gotten a lot of traction is that with nearly every teen using a smartphone these days, digital media must take some of the blame for worsening mental health.

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But some researchers argue that this theory isn't well supported by existing evidence and that it repeats a "moral panic" argument made many times in the past about video games, rap lyrics, television and even radio, back in its early days.

To understand both sides of the debate, I talked in detail to three researchers: one who argues that teens' use of tech is a big problem, one who thinks the danger is exaggerated and an expert in research methodology who suggests the connection may not be so simple.

Very concerned about smartphones

Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, may be the researcher most associated with the idea that smartphones are dangerous to teens. She's the author of the book iGen, whose 27-word subtitle states her thesis: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — and What That Means for the Rest of Us.

"At first, when I saw these trends in loneliness and unhappiness and depression starting to spike around 2011 or 2012, I really had no idea what could possibly be causing that. It was a real mystery," she tells NPR. Then, she says, she took note of Pew research that showed 2012 was the first year that most cell phone owners had switched to smartphones.


Not only do these two trend lines seem to coincide in time, but Twenge also notes that young people who report spending the most time on smartphones — five to seven hours a day — are twice as likely to report being depressed as those who use their phones for one to two hours a day...

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/27/754362629/the-scientific-debate-over-teens-screens-and-mental-health