Smartphone Usage Might Not Be An Adversary of Teenagers
In the research paper titled, ‘Young Adolescents’ Digital Technology Use and Adolescents’, they have tried to break the stigma attached to poor mental health and smartphone usage by studying what impact onscreen time has on the minds of children.
According to the researchers, this study was followed by research which founded a strong link between frequent usage of social media and increased amount of distress in teenagers. The former research also attributed to factors like sleep and exercise disruptions due to social media usage.
The new research involved 400 teenagers and tracked their social media and other technology usage. The adolescents aged between 12 and 15 reported their daily technology use and measured it using various self-reporting measures like the number of text messages sent each day, and the number of hours spent on the device for each day. Further, the total time spent was differentiated to various social media channels.
Post-analysing the results, there was no correlation found between the usage of smartphones and increased mental health disorders. Further, researchers also found an adverse relation of increased usage of technology for school-based work and frequent symptoms of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They also found a strange link between increased text messaging and lowering depression symptoms among individuals.
Michaelene Jensen, one of the psychologists working on this research said, “Contrary to the common belief that smartphones and social media are damaging adolescents’ mental health, we don’t see much support for the idea that time spent on phones and online is associated with increased risk for mental health problems.”
This research also contradicts a previous extensive research paper which had around 10,000 children participating for it. It had found higher levels of psychological issues among children with frequent use of social media.
Further, the researchers also suggested that the increase in mental health issues because of extensive use of technology might be due to other factors associated with it. They cited factors like loss of sleep, lack of exercise and exposure to cyberbullying as underlying causes of increased physiological issues among children.
Russel Viner, lead researcher of the study from University College London also explained, “Our results suggest that social media itself doesn’t cause harm, but that frequent use may disrupt activities that have a positive impact on mental health such as sleeping and exercising, while increasing exposure of young people to harmful content, particularly the negative experience of cyber-bullying.”
