Medium close-up front view of a teenage girl texting friends and checking social media while waiting in the hallway of her high school.
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Parents around the world are debating when to give their children smartphones, as evidence mounts that smartphones can have a negative impact on children’s mental health.
Research shows that the earlier young people get their first smartphone, the worse their mental health is. Sapien Lab Research The report, released last year, used data from 27,969 people aged 18-24 in 41 countries.
The study found that about 74% of girls who received their first smartphone at age 6 said they felt distressed or trapped. For those who got their first smartphone at age 15, this dropped to 52%.
Meanwhile, 42% of boys who got their first smartphone at age 6 reported pain or struggle, while this dropped to 36% of boys who got their first smartphone at age 18.
But in an increasingly connected world, where smartphones have become an essential part of daily life, many parents want to provide their children with devices so they can track their location and stay in touch with their children when they leave the house. So how long is too soon?
Keeping smartphones away from pre-teens is especially important, said Zach Rausch, a research scientist at NYU Stern School of Business and lead researcher on Jonathan Haidt’s No. 1 New York Times bestseller “The Anxious Generation.”
“We recommend in the book that in the United States, you delay smartphone use until high school, which is about 14 years old,” Rausch told CNBC Make It. “For social media, we recommend delaying it until 16, so that’s bigger.”
“Then we recommend that American schools go from at least kindergarten to middle school, but preferably also to high school, without phones,” he added.
Meanwhile, grassroots groups advocating for delays in providing smartphones to children are gaining traction around the world.
Both Childhood without smartphones In the UK – the company was founded after an “accidental” social media post went viral in February and now has nearly 70,000 Instagram followers worldwide – and delayed smartphone The United States cited the research and recommendations of Rausch and Haidt.
However, some academics and scientists remain unconvinced that there is a causal link between smartphones and poor mental health. Earlier this year, Psychology Professor Christopher Ferguson The concerns are the latest manifestation of a recurring moral panic that has seen older people “panicked” by new and unfamiliar technologies.
Middle school is the key
For Rausch, the recommended age of 14 for smartphone use and 16 for social media is important for several reasons.
“First of all, in the United States, we want to stop using cell phones starting in middle school, because that’s early adolescence, a period where you’re very sensitive and insecure. It’s already a difficult time.” We don’t need to be there. Add a phone there,” he explained.
Secondary school typically includes children from grades 6 to 8, 11 to 14 years old—essentially the dreaded pre-pubescent period.
This is “the most vulnerable period of adolescence,” Rausch said.
He added that in seventh grade, around 12 to 13 years old, “it’s the worst bullying of any grade,” so delaying smartphone use could prevent the problem from growing further.
Rausch admits that the ages proposed in Generation Anxiety are “somewhat arbitrary,” but they seek to set a “collective norm” that parents can agree to and follow.
“If we can all agree together, it will be much easier to act,” he explained. “So if we delay it to 14, which is a reasonable ask, we can at least help take it out of the younger age groups, and what we’re seeing is an increasing proportion of 10-year-olds and 6-year-olds. big.
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