“We went into this study expecting to find what many researchers, teachers and other observers assume: smartphone ownership is harmful to children,” said Justin D. Martin, the study’s lead researcher. Instead, “most of the time we found the opposite\u2014that owning a smartphone was associated with positive outcomes.”<\/p>\n
Martin’s research is part of a major undertaking meant to “track digital media use and wellness across the lifespan,” notes USF in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the first part of this study, researchers surveyed<\/a> 1,510 Florida kids ages 11 to 13. On almost every metric measuring well-being, smartphone-owning kids showed better results.<\/p>\n For instance, kids with smartphones were more likely to spend in-person time with friends. “Contrary to the position that smartphone use is associated with fewer in-person meetups with friends, on average, smartphone owners spend nearly three days a week in-person with a friend(s), while kids with no smartphone spend closer to two days a week in-person with friends,” write the researchers. “The same trend was seen for tablet ownership, daily video gaming, and daily social media use.”<\/p>\n Kids with smartphones were less likely to report symptoms of anxiety or depression and more likely to report feeling good about themselves. Eighty percent of kids who own smartphones and 82 percent of those who own tablets said they felt good about themselves, compared to 69 percent for those without smartphones and 71 percent for those without tablets. Asked if they agreed with the statement that “life often feels meaningless,” 18 percent of kids with smartphones said yes, compared to 26 percent of those without their own smartphone. And length of smartphone ownership was not correlated with depression or anxiety symptoms, either.<\/p>\n Kids with smartphones were also significantly less likely to be “cyberbullied” than their peers without smartphones. For instance, 32 percent of those without phones said someone had spread rumors or lies about them online, compared to 18 percent of those with phones. And 28 percent of those without phones said they had been called mean or hurtful names online, compared to 16 percent of those with smartphones.<\/p>\n This doesn’t mean that smartphone use was universally positive. Kids who slept with their phones in their rooms got less sleep on average, suggesting that parents might want to think about confiscating phones before bedtime. (Though even the group that slept with phones in their rooms reported an average of 8.6 hours of sleep per night.)<\/p>\n Heavy video gamers were more likely than light gamers to report trouble stopping tech use once started, and heavy users of social media were more likely than lighter users to report sleep issues.<\/p>\n And respondents who reported posting publicly<\/i> and often<\/i> on social media were more likely to report sleep issues and symptoms of depression and anxiety, possibly related to the exposure to mean comments and other forms of cyberbullying that posting could bring. Unsurprisingly, kids who experienced online bullying were more likely to report negative effects from technology.<\/p>\n Of course, these statistics\u2014like the stats wielded to argue that screen time is bad<\/em> for kids\u2014don’t actually tell us what comes first, the issues in question or the heavy use of technology. For instance, kids suffering from anxiety, insomnia, depression, and social isolation could find these issues triggered by <\/i>social media, but it seems at least as likely that frequent posting to social media or heavy consumption of such posts may be a symptom of anxiety, insomnia, social isolation, or depression that they already felt.<\/p>\n While we’re on caveats, there’s a big one on this study overall. The kinds of families that get smartphones for their 11- to 13-year-olds may be fundamentally different from those who don’t. And the kinds of kids in this age group whose parents deem them ready for a phone may also be different from the kids whose parents don’t think they’re ready. So some of the differences in well-being between phone-wielding kids and those without phones could come down to differences that have nothing to do with technology.<\/p>\n Despite the caveats, this survey provides another point against smartphone doomers such as Jonathan Haidt<\/a> and Jean Twenge<\/a>. At the very least, it suggests “that the effects of smartphone ownership are complex,” as Wendy Rote, an associate professor of psychology as USF, put it.<\/p>\n A few points to demonstrate this complexity:<\/p>\n Speaking of socioeconomic status: You might imagine, as I originally did, that those without smartphones would be more likely to come from low-income families. But “while some kids likely don’t have their own smartphones due to the financial cost, fewer kids in wealthier households have their own smartphones than kids from poorer backgrounds,” the researchers say. Between 80 and 87 percent of kids in families with incomes of less than $100,000 had smartphones, while only 67 percent of kids in families making $150,000 or more did.<\/p>\n Another interesting aside: Kids\u2014or at least those in Florida\u2014are not abandoning Facebook at quite the levels popularly believed. Among social platforms used by survey respondents, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ranked fifth, behind YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.<\/p>\n Also notable: Kids prioritized feeling “welcome and safe” online over free speech (sigh).<\/p>\n And a large percentage of kids overall agreed with the sentiment that “life often feels meaningless,” with agreement significantly higher among boys (23 percent versus 16 percent for girls) and among kids from higher-income households (31 percent among kids in households making $150,000 or more versus 10 percent among kids from households making $50,000 or less).<\/p>\n The USF researchers are next taking the survey nationwide, hoping to track the phone habits and well being metrics of 8,000 adolescents for 25 years.<\/p>\n In another strike against smartphone alarmists, a group of international experts argued in The BMJ<\/i> late last month that banning phones and\/or social media for minors won’t necessarily improve their well-being. There are “no simple, one-size-fits-all answers,” they write<\/a>:<\/p>\n Although many policy makers, schools, and parents are primed to believe arguments that smartphones and social media are inherently harmful, the evidence about their overall effect on children is not clear cut. Smartphone bans have the advantage of being immediately actionable and relatively straightforward to enforce. However, despite positive anecdotal data, we do not have the evidence to establish the types of bans that are effective and what works best for children of different ages. A recent evaluation of school smartphone policies in England reported that restricted smartphone use in schools was not associated with benefits to adolescent mental health and wellbeing, physical activity and sleep, educational attainment, or classroom behaviour. In addition, this study found no evidence of school restrictions being associated with lower levels of overall phone or media use or problematic social media use.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Moreover, bans may do children a disservice by failing to prep them for healthy technology use as adults:<\/p>\n Bans and restrictions have been successfully used for public health issues such as smoking. But smoking is not comparable with smartphone and social media use because the harms from smoking are extensive, clear cut, and by far outweigh the benefits. Prescribing abstinence from all technologies to protect against harms is unrealistic and potentially detrimental in a society where technology use is a practical necessity and confers various benefits, including information access and social support. Overall, blanket restrictions are “stop gap” solutions that do little to support children’s longer term healthy engagement with digital spaces across school, home, and other contexts and their successful transition into adolescence and adulthood in a technology filled world.<\/p>\n Bans and restrictions are context dependent, and their effects will be highly variable across regions and populations. Families’ experiences and perspectives related to screen engagement for their children vary by culture, religion, and socioeconomic circumstances, including internet access and quality, and access to safe and green outside spaces.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Unfortunately, the group writing in BMJ<\/em> does go on to promote some<\/em> one-size-fits-all solutions, including restrictions on the use of algorithms in apps used by minors. (Related: “In Defense of Algorithms<\/a>.”)<\/p>\n Backpage-to-MILFS Followup:<\/b> When I reported last month on the fact that Backpage.com now redirects to MILFS.com<\/a>, I noted that the domain name went up for an auction and wondered how much it went for. Elliot Silver of Domain Investing<\/em> seems to have the answer<\/a>: $259,500.<\/p>\n TikTok Followup: <\/b>President Donald Trump has once again extended the deadline for TikTok parent company ByteDance to sell off its U.S. operations or face a ban. Trump’s first extension of the deadline imposed by Congress last year gave ByteDance until April 5<\/a> to divest or be banned. Trump has now given ByteDance an additional 75 days. Perhaps he plans to keep this up for his whole four years (never mind the fact that he’s got no authority to extend the deadline in the first place).<\/p>\n “The extension is happening at a particularly fraught time in U.S.-China relations. This week, Mr. Trump levied a 34 percent tariff on goods from China,” notes<\/a> The New York Times<\/i>. “On Friday, Beijing retaliated with 34 percent across-the-board tariffs on imports from the United States. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested he could lower the China tariffs as part of a deal for the app, which will need the Chinese government’s approval.”<\/p>\n Authenticity and OnlyFans<\/b>: Two guys are suing OnlyFans because content creators they thought were chatting directly with them were allegedly employing agencies to interact with fans on their behalf. The guys allege breach of contract, deceptive practices, and violation of privacy in a class action complaint<\/a> filed in federal court in Illinois. This isn’t the first time OnlyFans subscribers have sued over this issue: “In July 2024, five OnlyFans users also filed a class action complaint against OnlyFans’ parent company claiming that ‘chatter scams’ defraud fans,” reports<\/a> 404 Media<\/i>. “Last month, a judge ordered that the case would go to trial in 2027.”<\/p>\n Polis pushes back against bad tech laws: <\/b>Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, opposes a social media age-verification bill being pushed by state lawmakers and another measure aimed at online platforms. CBS reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Polis says that, while he wants to protect kids online, he’s concerned about court rulings, including one this week that found that age verification threatens constitutional rights and privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take up the issue this summer.<\/p>\n Polis is also concerned about the bill that has already passed, which he believes forces social media companies to act as law enforcement by requiring them to investigate complaints of illegal activity, like selling guns or drugs to minors, within 10 days and ban users who break the law or violate company policies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Georgia cops drop charges against woman who miscarried:<\/b> “Criminal charges brought against a Georgia woman who experienced a miscarriage and allegedly disposed of the fetus in a dumpster were dismissed Friday\u2014a dramatic development in a case that illuminated the complex legal gray area of prosecuting pregnancy loss,” The Washington Post<\/i> reports<\/a>. “Selena Chandler-Scott, 24,\u200b\u200bwas charged last month with concealing the death of another person and abandoning a dead body after she had a miscarriage, officials said. The fetus was 19 weeks old and had not taken a breath outside the womb, the state medical examiner found.”<\/p>\n The post Study: Kids With Smartphones Are Less Depressed, Anxious, Bullied Than Peers Without Them<\/a> appeared first on Reason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A large new study finds smartphone ownership positively correlated with multiple measures of well being in 11- to 13-year-old kids. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[19,9,161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113790"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Less Anxiety, Higher Self-Esteem<\/h2>\n
Not All Screen Time Created Equal<\/h2>\n
It’s Complicated<\/h2>\n
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No ‘One-Size-Fits-All Answers’<\/h2>\n
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\nMore Sex & Tech News\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Today’s Image<\/b><\/h2>\n
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