Research: Almost Half of the American Teens Are Constantly on Their Phones

According to recent research entitled "Most U.S. Teens Who Use Cellphones Do it to Pass Time, Connect With Others, Learn New Things," nearly 95 percent of teens have access to a smartphone, while 45 percent say they are constantly on the internet, per Healthline.

The amount of screen time consumed by teens and children has raised concerns from parents, educators, and policymakers across the United States. Even many teenagers worry about smartphone use.

Smartphones have become part of daily life as they are used for almost everything from checking important emails and social feeds and searching for directions. Perhaps, no group embraces their devices more than adolescents. The data showed that teens have become more reliant on their screens amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Some research has shed light on when phone usage becomes addictive for early adolescents or tweens. 

The outlet shared some warning signs of a young person developing smartphone addiction and how parents or guardians can help their children relate to their screens in a healthier way.

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What does recent research suggest regarding phone consumption?

Over the summer, research entitled "Social Epidemiology of Early Adolescent Problematic Screen Use in the United States," published in the Journal of Pediatric Research, determined American tweens' problematic screen consumption.

The research team used data from the two-year follow-up to the "Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study," a longitudinal study that primarily focused on the health and cognitive development of 11,875 children across the United States who were surveyed from 2016 to 2018. The researchers followed up with these young ones, ranging from 10 to 14, between 2018 and 2020.

The tweens who participated commanded from a broad range of socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds and were asked about their social media, video game, and mobile phone use. The study showed wide-reaching reliance on technology and how young ones see it and found some broad trends.

Boys exhibited signs of problematic video game use, while girls surveyed demonstrated a higher likelihood of problematic social and cellphone use. In addition, Native American, Black, and Latin adolescents were reported to have higher scores across all problematic screen measures than white peers. Moreover, the study determined that the tweens who came from households with unmarried or unpartnered parents had higher problematic social media use.

According to the study, 47.5 percent of teens lost track of how much they use their phones, while 30.6 percent admit that their phones somehow hinder them from doing a certain task. Lastly, 11.3 percent said that without having a phone or not using a phone even for a day makes them feel more distressed.

What are the signs and symptoms of smartphone addiction?

The main sign of smartphone addiction is when a child gets overly dependent on the phone, they cannot do anything without checking their phone, even for a minute. Dr. Jason Nagata, assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of adolescent and young adult medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said that a child who is smartphone addicted might become distressed at the thought of being without their phone.

Teens have smartphone addiction when they soon stop doing a certain thing to use phones, allowing the smartphone to interrupt whatever they may be doing.

Furthermore, you can indicate if a person is smartphone addicted if he immediately gets his phone whenever his bored. This only means that they somehow treat their phones as one of the sources of happiness. Smartphone addiction is associated with difficulties in cognitive-emotion regulation, impulsivity, impaired cognitive function, addiction to social networking, and low self-esteem, per Frontiers.

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