Teens and screens: How smartphones helped create a more anxious generation

SINGAPORE - In August 2024, a Singapore study released some worrying findings – nearly half of Singaporean youth aged between 15 and 21 have “problematic smartphone use”, which meant that they spent excessive time on their devices and were dependent on them.

What was even more of a concern was that those affected were at least three times more likely to have symptoms of moderate or severe depression, anxiety and insomnia.

Researchers from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) who conducted the study reported that users felt impatient or fretful without their devices and constantly thought about them. They also suffered problems from spending too much time on their devices, including physical discomfort – pain in the wrists or back of the neck. There were also many who missed work or were unable to concentrate during lessons due to smartphone use.

Dr Mythily Subramaniam, assistant chairman of IMH’s medical research board, said several studies have found a link between smartphones and the mental health of teenagers.

She said: “Experts who have studied it say it is partly the ease of access for teens. It’s the internet in your pocket, literally, and they spend many hours on their phones. Let’s face it, even as adults, we find it hard to cut down on the time we spend on our phones. Our smartphones enable and encourage constant connection – to information, entertainment, and each other. They put the world at our fingertips.”

Indeed, several experts around the world, including American social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge, present compelling arguments that the worsening mental health of children is linked to their access and dependency on digital devices.

In his latest book, The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring Of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic Of Mental Illness, Professor Haidt starts with the premise that Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, is suffering from a major mental illness epidemic and that smartphones are the cause of it.

As evidence, Prof Haidt, who is from the New York University Stern School of Business, cites a rise in adolescent mental health disorders, beginning around 2010 and starting with girls. Figures show that in the US, mental health issues that previously plagued around 5 per cent to 10 per cent of adolescents have risen to afflict around twice that number.

Smartphone use is, of course, not the only reason behind declining mental health in teenagers. Researchers are also studying causes such as over-parenting, which may hold children back from development as they learn and grow from their mistakes and missteps.

In Asia, experts are also looking at whether achievement-oriented societies are piling the pressure on young people.

Dr Mythily says another major contributory factor is sleep.

She said: “Adolescence is a time of rapid changes in body, emotions, and behaviour, and sleep researchers have found that poor sleep can amplify negative emotions and affect their control.” 

So, why zero in on mobile phone usage?

Professors Haidt and Twenge argue that the early 2010s were when adolescents in developed countries traded in their flip phones for smartphones and moved much more of their social lives online.

Prof Haidt posits that once young people began carrying the world in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and development.

“Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity – all were affected. Life changed rapidly for younger children, too, as they began to get access to their parents’ smartphones and, later, got their own iPads, laptops, and even smartphones while they were in elementary school,” he writes in The Atlantic, a US magazine.

Usage rates averaging seven hours a day gradually but profoundly rewired their maturing brains.

So what is it about being online that disrupts healthy development in children?

Four ways in which overuse of smartphone affects young people’s mental health

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Prof Haidt identifies four ways in which unchecked smartphone and social media usage has had an impact on young people.

1. Experience blocker

First, a smartphone is an “experience blocker”, taking up hours in a day that may otherwise be spent in physical play or in-person conversations with friends and family.

Experts say children need face-to-face, unsupervised group play to develop social skills like resilience. But kids and teens have increasingly forgone these crucial interactions since social media and smartphones went mainstream in around 2013.

Prof Haidt cites data from the American Time Use Survey, which shows that people aged 15 to 24 hung out with friends for an average of 45 minutes per day in 2020 – over an hour and 20 minutes less than they did in 2013. He says time with friends fell so drastically among this age group between 2018 and 2020 that a graph of the data shows no abnormal decline in social interaction during the Covid-19 pandemic.

2. Sleep deprivation

Second, the use of smartphones has led to sleep deprivation. Again, Prof Haidt quotes research data showing that teenagers who use smartphones and social media get less sleep than their peers who abstain, and it is more serious than parents might think.

Dr Mythily from IMH laid out the facts on sleep deprivation – numerous research studies have shown that teenagers who are sleep deprived during puberty struggle with short-term memory and attention span, get worse grades and comprehend less class material, and demonstrate less capacity to make good decisions.

They are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other disorders as not having enough sleep has been shown to dampen positive mood and affect emotion regulation.

3. Attention

Alerts and messages continually drag teenagers away from the present moment and tasks requiring concentration. Prof Haidt quotes one study that shows teenagers get an average 192 notifications from social media and communication apps every day – each one a temptation to stop the task at hand in favour of something more exciting.

The distracting draw of the smartphone is so powerful, a University of Chicago study found, that its mere presence in a classroom decreases a student’s academic performance.

In a journal paper, the researchers explained why smartphones have this effect, more so than other technological devices such as the TV or desktop computers.

They say the vast majority of innovations so far have occupied a defined space in consumers’ lives because of their limited function and being in a fixed place.

“Smartphones transcend these limitations. They are consumers’ constant companions, offering unprecedented connection to information, entertainment, and each other.”

4. Social media and gaming addiction

Last but not least, mobile phones have led to addictions, including gaming. Both professors Haidt and Twenge explain how apps and social media are deliberately designed to hack vulnerabilities in teenagers’ psychology.

They argue that many of the apps, including social media platforms and games, tap into users’ hormonal pleasure system by rewarding viewers for spending time on them – triggering a release of the brain’s pleasure chemical, dopamine.

The Straits Times reported that Singapore agencies that help children and teens with gaming and social media addiction have seen a rise in the number of cases. Touch Community Services, which runs a counselling intervention programme, saw a 56 per cent increase in number of cases from 2019 to 2022 – from 70 to 111.

Another agency, We Care Community Services, said it has seen an increase of over 20 per cent in referrals for gaming when comparing pre-Covid and post-Covid years.

So, how do we fix the problem?

Prof Haidt, for all his views on technology’s harms, is optimistic that something can be done to turn back the clock.

His book offers many suggestions on what families, schools, educators and big tech companies can do to alleviate the problem.

Schools should lock up their students’ phones from the start of the day till the end of it – something already being done by several schools in Singapore.

Parents should help, by giving their children more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.

Prof Haidt is the father of a 14-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son.

In media interviews, he admits to giving his son a phone in fourth grade and daughter one in sixth grade, because they walked to school in New York City. He wishes though that he had given them flip phones rather than smartphones in retrospect.

But both his children have benefited from a family rule of no social media until 16. He recommends that parents hold off on giving their children smartphones until they are older – when they start high school – at the age of 15. No smartphone before high school. Just give them a flip phone.

And no social media till 16 – though for this to happen, the tech companies have to play their part.

He says to technology companies in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR), the public radio network of the US: “You’re offering a service that is harmful to children, you figure out how to keep kids off.”

He stresses: “So what I’m saying is just delay, delay, delay. Delay the age at which the kids are going to jump into this cesspool.

“(Parents) have under-protected children online but we’ve also overprotected them in the real world. And we need to address both halves.

“Kids need to be anchored in the real world with real relationships, real responsibilities, real love. Virtual activities don’t substitute.”

He also believes that young people can be reasoned with.

He told the US media: “They see the problems of their phone-based childhoods. They see it’s a huge waste of their time. But when I ask them why they don’t get off TikTok and Instagram, they say they can’t because everyone else is on them.”

Prof Haidt has too often heard parents tell him that “it is not possible to put the genie back in the bottle” and “the train has left the station”.

To which he asks: “If a train has left the station and it’s full of children and it’s going out on a track and we know that the bridge is out and it’s going to plunge down a gorge and they’re all going to die, should we try to call it back? I think we should.”

Not all experts in the field agree with Prof Haidt’s suggestions, arguing that even if teenagers’ phone use were damaging, it probably could not be radically curtailed anyway, given how essential social media has become to them.

Another often-quoted social psychologist, Dr Sonia Livingstone from the London School of Economics in the UK, for example, argues that heavy-handed bans will breed resentment and conflict.

She says what matters more is what children do on screens, and in what context, and she urges parents to try to set an example in how they use their own smartphones. She also recommends parents nudge children towards positive online experiences.

Dr Mythily agrees that parents should set limits on phone usage for their children at a young age, but that is something that the whole family should follow.

“For example, set aside dinner time as a time when everyone puts down their phones,” she suggests.

Rather than an outright ban, she recommends a step-by-step approach to moderating usage of the phone, while giving children the tools and information they need to navigate social media safely. 

She is also all for using technology to monitor internet usage and blocking harmful sites to protect their children.

And everyone – parents, teachers, policymakers – need to team up to create a healthy environment for kids.

She stresses: “There’s a need to find a balance – between limiting phone use and helping children grow up healthy in the digital age. And looking at how fast artificial intelligence is advancing, there’s an added urgency to helping them navigate the digital world safely.”