Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults with Worse Mental Health (2023)

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report

by julkali • 2 years ago

132 106 2 years ago

brookst• 2 years ago

It’s interesting but doesn’t seem to address the correlation / causation thing. It may be that other attributes of the kids, parents, family, or socioeconomic context lead to earlier smartphone use and also worse mental health / happiness later in life.

croemer2• 2 years ago

Came here to say this.

This blog was founded to convince others of the harm of smartphones. It's not unreasonable to imagine that the authors have significant confirmation bias.

Everything they claim needs to be taken with a big grain of salt. Haidt is also marketing his book via the blog.

It would be much more credible if he designed proper scientific studies and punished them in relevant Journals after peer review.

The fact he doesn't publish properly is consistent with my hunch that his claims wouldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.

em500• 2 years ago

It's kind of addressed in section 5:

"We cannot be certain that the correlations shown in the data are evidence of causality, but we think it is appropriate for those who care for children to act on the preponderance of the evidence (which is the standard in a civil trial) rather than waiting for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (which is the standard used in a criminal trial."

It's not that social (or medical) researchers are unaware that observational studies can't establish causation, but in most cases when studying human reactions nothing better is feasible. For a proper randomized controlled trials even voluntary enrollments are problematic: the researcher needs to choose and randomize the treatment. How can that ever be implemented for a sufficiently powered study of smartphones/social media use for children (or adults)?

amanaplanacanal2• 2 years ago

“We can’t do real science because it would be too expensive, so we’ll just assume that what we are trying to prove is true.” I hate it, and we need to figure out something better. We use this same method in diet research, too.

jimbokun3• 2 years ago

Jonathan Haidt has covered the correlation/ causation question very rigorously. The case that smart phones and social media specifically have an impact is very strong.

hello_kitty22• 2 years ago

Could it also be sign of unhealthy parenting? Parents who are not good at parenting give a smart phone to kids earlier?

RNAlfons• 2 years ago

They don't even need "mental health issues" because it just works. Give the toddler an iPad and it'll stop bothering you.

Scary stuff...

osigurdson• 2 years ago

The school my son used to attend wanted to be hi tech (I guess) and gave all kids iPads with all textbooks and assignments provided this way. You don't need a study or aversion to technology to realize how bad they are for this purpose. The screen is small, constrained and low fidelity compared to a paper text book. It also (by default, as provisioned) turns off every ~5s to save battery life which is incredibly annoying. It is just objectively worse than paper.

faitswulff2• 2 years ago

Probably just correlated with poverty, as with almost everything else. Only wealthy parents can afford to send their kids to summer camp.

loufe• 2 years ago

Not JUST correlated with poverty, but likely to a large degree, I agree. Ideally, kids would get a maximum amount of quality time with their parents or siblings instead of being parented by the internet. Wealthier parents parents, I suppose, would be more likely to have the free time (or that of paid help), emotional availability, educated tendancy to read and develop and understand of the importance and structure of shared time, healthy established family norms, and genes. There's a lot going against poor families, and it's not getting easier.

julkali3• 2 years ago

Yes, money is also a factor. You can see some data in https://substack.com/home/post/p-140838494 by the same guys.

mistermann3• 2 years ago

I am pretty well off and I am very guilty of letting my kids overuse electronics. Plenty of my friends are the same (we've discussed it).

tetris11• 2 years ago

If you don't have time to parent because you're off to your second job, plonking a child in front of a screen is a godsend (for the parent, not for the child, naturally).

random9749832• 2 years ago

You seem to be trying to generalise the behaviour of people with "mental health issues" which is rather broad with different outcomes among different individuals. It is almost like a polite way of putting people in the crazy bucket.

hello_kitty22• 2 years ago

That is a fair point. I was asking whether the cause was bad parenting and not smart phones itself. The mental health issues reference was pointless and makes no sense.

dghughes3• 2 years ago

It used to be park your kid in front of a TV.

barryrandall• 2 years ago

Content on TV (for better or worse) is regulated, and those regulations are periodically updated to address the moral outrage of the day.

jimbokun3• 2 years ago

At this point I believe confounding variables have been thoroughly considered and the case that there is a specific effect from smart phones and social media specifically is incredibly strong.

amanaplanacanal2• 2 years ago

The confounding variables they are aware of, you mean. The problem is the confounding variables they aren’t aware of.

donohoe• 2 years ago

Maybe.

I'm a parent (in the US). My kids got cellphone a bit before Middle School (so they could connect with outgoing Elementary friends) and better navigate NYC subways etc.

It is not perfect - but I am not one of those parents I see in the subway or on a flight that gives an iPad to their one year old. That type of parent scares me.

cchi_co• 2 years ago

The concern about the impact of internet and social media (and consequently smartphones) on children’s safety is well-founded. Increased anxiety and depression, reduced attention span, sleep disruption...

gtirloni2• 2 years ago

I don't remember feeling depressed about my Internet usage before social networks existed. Just making a point to try and separate those two, as impossible as it seems these days.

technothrasher2• 2 years ago

When did you start using the Internet? I was already using social networks (Multi-user BBS's and FidoNet) before I even first got onto the Internet in 1988, and then immediately got on to Usenet and IRC for social networking.

nottorp4• 2 years ago

The internet is fine thank you.

It's anything with a "social" component that's the problem.

You need to split it further because I think the young uns think direct person-to-person messaging is also social media. That's fine too.

It's when they start cramming unwanted content and "influencers" down your throat that the problem appears.

dfxm12• 2 years ago

Ignorance is bliss.

ajma• 2 years ago

I don't remember feeling negatively affected by social media until politics started to get into my feed.

bitsandboots3• 2 years ago

And, though easier to study the effect on children, it affects us all.

Instant everything is an addictive stimulant and anxiety source.

Social media encourages intense emotions.

The ability to view only what you wish encourages confirmation bias and helps viewpoints at odds with reality from ever being challenged by reality.

And unlimited feel-good content encourages a runaway desire for more, making reality boring.

Some of us are lucky enough to have self restraint against it all. But the drugs are always lurking a click away.

mistermann3• 2 years ago

And unlimited feel-good content encourages a runaway desire for more, making reality boring.

Agree, and a big and non-obvious part of this is that we've invested "all" of our resources in technology and profit oriented goals, rather than in things that make mainstream day to day life in our communities pleasant and non-boring, for all people.

The physical runtime we are in supports a massive diversity of gameplay and outcomes, unfortunately we've somehow "chosen" a model of governance that constantly makes poor choices.

This could be fixed, but we've been trained to worship the very thing that is ruining life here on Earth. To me, this is quite a hilarious situation, it is like living in a sitcom.

I wonder why reality works this way but we are not able to change it. Maybe being not able to talk about it (skilfully) is part of the problem.

julkali3• 2 years ago

Yes, I do believe that in the general debate, too little focus is given on the fact that also adults are affected negatively by social media

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

impact of internet and social media (and consequently smartphones)

Every article (and a lot of HN comments) seems to blur the distinction between phones and social media. This article already does it in the second sentence. They need to start getting more precise, and studies need to better control for one when they study the other. (Do the actual studies do a proper job distinguishing? I don't follow the research.) Is social media the harmful thing or is it smartphones?

bdcravens• 2 years ago

Causation or correlation? Rarely do parents force phones on their kids; they give in to their kids asking. This could say something about those kids, or perhaps about parents who give their kids what they ask.

liveoneggs• 2 years ago

they start asking early

blitzar2• 2 years ago

I really wanted a gun when I was a 3. My parents didnt get me one.

zx10rse• 2 years ago

This is well known fact by now I would say. The social dilemma docu shows some pretty interesting data - The Social Dilemma - Influence of Social Media on Teen Depression and Behavior

They were showing some pretty concerning data of the first generation that grew up with smartphones in school.

I can only imagine in time what will be the picture of the first generation that is growing up now with LLM models everywhere around them.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui0UNXsEGJ8

Aerroon• 2 years ago

The most mentally healthy respondents are those who did not get a phone until their late teens.

The first graph also shows that the oldest people score the best on their mental health test in general.

---

They note that their Mental Health Quotient figure has been decreasing over the years.

They also note that in the age range of 18-24 the earlier that the people were given a smartphone the worse the MHQ figure is. But did they control for age here?

Because 18-24 is a 7 year duration. Their first graph shows that in a 7 year timeframe their MHQ graph drops 25%. We could be seeing an effect that the older part of the range got their smartphones at a later age (because it's new technology) and the correlated MHQ drop by year creates the drop off by age of first smartphone.

Was this accounted for because I couldn't find it on a quick read.

---

You might also be measuring the effect of better mental health awareness. Ie kids who got smartphones earlier might be more aware of mental health issues and are more likely to notice and bring it up.

julkali3• 2 years ago

They conduct(ed) a quite extensive collaborative meta-study about the broader subject [0]. Maybe you can find your points adressed there.

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-...

bitsandboots3• 2 years ago

Seems to me earlier access to smartphones would also be detrimental to tech expertise. Teach your kids right, teach them unix first :)

RhysU• 2 years ago

"Talk to your kids about POSIX" reads my favorite t-shirt.

mewpmewp23• 2 years ago

Only give them a phone/computer with terminal like text input and output. If they want to use social media, they must code it themselves, including graphics.

blitzar2• 2 years ago

Don't let them use it till they compile the kernel themselves.

detourdog2• 2 years ago

The problem I see with the study is that smartphones are so new to society that the younger children in the US have seen a lot more chaos in formally stable society.

jimbokun3• 2 years ago

There have been plenty of eras with less social stability. I don’t see how this era stands out especially.

detourdog2• 2 years ago

The events may or may not stand out but children today have less autonomy and are given responsibility for themselves later in life. I see this as developing a feel of helplessness. Compounded with current media landscape of distortion and distress is different.

Finally I see that society would rather scapegoat the smartphone than point out the issue having TVs the public spaces makes consumption of this stress are background noise.

ttpphd• 2 years ago

Old Haidt piece. Wonder why it's getting traction this year.

dbtablesorrows4• 2 years ago

You all miss the obvious correlations.

A society with prosperity but lacking athletic, artistic and intellectual pursuits will devolve into a crowd of purposeless humans living for the pleasures of the moment.

That's what current generations are. 90% of people have enough to meet needs, and no meaningful purpose in life apart from scrolling tiktok, constant stream of sexualized and otherwise glorified (money, aesthetics) material. The popular culture also glorifies temporary pleasures (drugs, drinking, sexual promiscuity).

Just look at average teenager, their lives revolve around celebrities and these habits. They're lookist, superficial and shallow AF. Of course they will lose mental health thinking about looks and comparing with some photoshopped instagram celebrity.

No wonder they don't have enough stability to sustain ups and downs in life when they lack a purpose, and centered their lives around these hedonistic pleasures.

ch4s3• 2 years ago

You all miss the obvious correlations.

I think this is one of the contributing factors that researchers are pointing to, smartphone use in adolescence encourages a more sedentary lifestyle and less sleeps.

tohnjitor2• 2 years ago

This is almost correct.

A society with prosperity but lacking athletic, artistic and intellectual pursuits will devolve into a crowd of purposeless humans living for the pleasures of the moment.

I would change this to

A society with prosperity but lacking family and reproductive pursuits will devolve into a crowd of purposeless humans living for the pleasures of the moment.

shrimp_emoji• 2 years ago

This is almost correct.

A society with prosperity but lacking family and reproductive pursuits will devolve into a crowd of purposeless humans living for the pleasures of the moment.

I would change this to

A society with prosperity and whose universal revealed preference across all cultures is to use that prosperity to buy other crap that beats dealing with family and reproductive pursuits will devolve into a crowd of purposeless humans living for the pleasures of the moment.

dbtablesorrows4• 2 years ago

I am all for family values, but I am not convinced it will guarantee purpose in life and prevent you from spiralling into depression for some other reason.

AinoSpring• 2 years ago

Now I (as a teenager) am glad that I'm a nerd

crazygringo3• 2 years ago

...lacking athletic, artistic and intellectual pursuits... That's what current generations are... Just look at average teenager

You must be looking at very different teenagers from the ones I am.

I have literally never seen a more athletic, more artistic, or more intellectual generation than ever before.

My parents' generation played one sport, if that. Now teens play four sports and go to pre-professional sports summer camps. My parents' generation didn't know art if it hit them on the head. These days being interested in design is a totally normal thing for teens, whether it's graphic design or interior design or fashion and so forth. My parents' generation all listened to the same music, and played in some pretty bad bands. Now teens create and share insanely creative new music -- across the world, not just limited to their small town. And intellectual pursuits? The proportion of teens applying to Ivy League universities, with all the intellectual rigor that requires, has never been higher. And the academic standards for getting in to those places has never been higher.

Now does this describe all teens? Of course not. But the point isn't to compare teens to some kind of level of perfection, it's to compare them to past generations of teens. And in the areas you're describing -- athletic, artistic, intellectual -- they seem to be doing better than ever before in history. I mean, come on -- think about teens in the 1990's, the 1980's, the 1950's. Hanging out in the parking lot, drinking beers, smoking cigarettes, getting high, wasting time at the mall. I don't know what kind of artistic-intellectual athletes you seem to remember.

The area they're doing worse in is mental health. Because the pressures and expectations on them also seem to be greater than ever before.

So perhaps be a little more charitable and understanding, rather than so judgmental and critical.

SSLy• 2 years ago

OTOH you might have changed your social class to one where those activities are more available.

dbtablesorrows4• 2 years ago

My gut feeling is the gen-Zers doing well intellectually / athletically are probably top 10%, and they dont correlate much with mental health issues. The average teenager is shallow and dumb, constantly looking for validation.

kalleboo• 2 years ago

Just another generational shift

"The 2,500-Year-Old History of Adults Blaming the Younger Generation" https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-a...

drugs, drinking, sexual promiscuity

Aren't these all way down with Gen Z? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/21/generation-z...

dbtablesorrows4• 2 years ago

The supply of these are down, but popularity and demand of these things are up. That's what causes the crisis.

inanutshellus• 2 years ago

It's funny how predictable all these comments are. It doesn't seem to matter how many studies say the same thing.

"It's probably not the smartphone; they're probably not considering [age, parental competence, socioeconomic variables, literally-anything-that-lets-me-pretend-my-beloved-smartphone-doesnt-hurt-my-mental-health]"

Y'all can't help but upvote the skeptical comments.

I wish I'd been saving all the articles I've read about this over the last several years. These studies are not rare and they don't disagree. Seriously. Go look right now and find a single study that says folks' mental health is improved by smartphones.

Here's a post on HN I saved a while back, check out its top comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31268222

top two comments:

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment[...]
Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem[...]

The first one I read was one back in 2017 by Jean Twenge that documented a cliff-face-leap of depression, loneliness, and anxiety and correlated it to the release of the first smartphone.

Ask yourselves - why are you all so desperate to deny this research?

smokel• 2 years ago

It's funny how predictable all these comments are.

Indeed they are, and that is why I come here. I like to see research being questioned and critiqued. If I am interested in simply taking everything I read on the internet for granted, I'd visit Facebook or LinkedIn, instead.

Most of us are well aware that too much phone usage is probably bad for you in one way or another. There is no need to acknowledge that on this forum.

So what you have here is a typical case of confirmation bias, no need to get upset about it :)

nofam• 2 years ago

Questioning research is good. Asking naive, obvious questions the researchers clearly predicted and accounted for is just adding noise and reducing signal.

Not all questions are good questions.

silverquiet• 2 years ago

Why are some so desperate to blame smartphones? As far as I am aware, smartphones are used globally but the symptoms described are not. Of this is an indictment of those societies that are destroying their children’s’ mental health and perhaps futures, it’s nice to have a relatively simple scapegoat upon which to pin the blame (though I suspect smartphones are as irrevocably embedded in our culture as all the other problems are at this point), and imagine solving the issue by removing.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

Researchers really need to get serious about separating smartphones from social media and drawing conclusions about one with the other one properly controlled.

genrilz4• 2 years ago

I've done literature reviews after seeing posts from Haidt come up here and elsewhere. If you go to semanticscholar.org for instance, type in "social media wellbeing meta-analysis", you will get something like [0]. (found a free link by searching the study title)

This and most other meta-analysis I have read on the subject seem to indicate that the effect of social media is pretty neutral. This one in particular does look at the effect on adolescents and depression specifically, and finds that it effects adolescents the same way it effects adults.

That being said, there is a small but statistically significant effect on anxiety and depression. This is cancelled out in overall wellbeing by other positive effects. However, given Haidt is saying we should implement age gates on social media, I would want the evidence to indicate something a bit more catastrophic and not cancelled out by positive effects.

So if you read the research, you will find there is good reason to be skeptical.

[0] https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/technology/2022-hancock.pdf

genrilz4• 2 years ago

I think I actually failed to respond properly in this comment. You were talking about smartphone use while the article was talking about social media use. I think Haidt and implicitly both of us were conflating the two, but they are separate topics.

I did a search for the effects of smartphones, trying to avoid meta-analysis describing only "overuse", and [0] came up. This seems to indicate somewhat larger effects of smartphones on anxiety. I can't access the article easily right now, but from the titles of other studies, it seems like sleep disruption might be a factor.

[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smi.2805

karaterobot• 2 years ago

We're currently at the stage of denying that social networks have negative mental and social effects. As more evidence is collected, we're shading toward fatalistic acceptance. But, even then, I suspect not much will change: we'll acknowledge that we have a problem, but we won't do anything about it for a long time yet. There are too many sources that enable this kind of addiction for it to just get dropped.

bdjsiqoocwk2• 2 years ago

It thought we were past the denial stage. Then one day I mentioned that I don't let my 2.5 play with a phone and the reaction from HN was shocking.

mewpmewp23• 2 years ago

Only phone or computer with terminal text output and input allowed.

genrilz4• 2 years ago

Every time Haidt comes up, I do go through the post and do another literature search on social media effects.

The most notable thing about this post is the MHQ figures. However, you might note that the difference in age of smartphone use moves a person by at most one bucket. Given that he is suggesting a ban on smartphones and/or social media, I would expect some more catastrophic effect.

In terms of the literature review, this time I read through [0]. It also finds small but significant effects on anxiety and depression, but finds no significant effects on overall measures of well-being. This is because social media also seems to have some positive effects on some other measures of well-being. This meta analysis also finds that age does not seem to change the effects of social media. On longitudinal studies, it seems like social well-being does decrease social media use, but anxiety and depression to not increase social media use. Also, social media use doesn't seem to cause anxiety and depression here, so there is probably some third factor causing anxiety, depression, and social media use which causes this correlation.

Also interesting is that internationally the effects are neutral, and in the US, the effects are neutral, but in Europe they are negative, while in Asia they are positive. IDK why, but it doesn't really support his hypothesis that social media has some sort of catastrophic impact worth banning.

[0] https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/technology/2022-hancock.pdf

jauntywundrkind2• 2 years ago

Haidt has a whole career built around demonizing letting children use the internet.

We just had a discussion on persistent vs obstinate[1]. It's this man's mission to be one of the two on this topic. To keep bringing up his bailiwick. This topic is going to keep coming up, almost every time by people like Haidt committed to the negative, committed to obstructing what they can only regard as a dangerous possibility. I do not particularly enjoy topics where we get blown in only one direction like this, it's rarely a useful dialog, it rarely adapts or changes to the world about it.

(One use I do see for AI is being able to go search & synopsize who it is we are receiving broadcasts from. Right now it takes research to go find out who the transmitter is. We are easily cast to places with little context. (This is in part why the appeal of the darker web is so effective, because we are liable to drift in un-aware)).

genrilz4• 2 years ago

I would like to note that he has created/supported a variety of political causes in the past. His current cause does seem to be pointing to restricting kids internet access, but I can't really figure out what he wants.

One of these is his "moral foundations" theory, which claims that people have different underlying reasons for having various moral opinions. He claimed to have identified some but left the exact reasons open ended and changeable. He claimed that everyone realizing this would decrease political polarization. Neuroscientists pointed out that the "modules" he described can't map to actual brain structures, and he claimed that it didn't matter. I'm kind of unsure of if I would even call this science, as I don't really see how to make a predictable hypothesis out of it. However, it could be valuable as political speech if people do indeed lack awareness that other people value different things than them. (I always assumed everyone knew that, but maybe they don't?)

He also argued for "anti-fragility". The concept that kids these days are kept from experiencing failure and other unpleasant things, and that this will lead them to become worse off during adulthood. This seems more testable, but almost seems to be in direct contradiction to his current anti-smartphone/anti-social media cause. Perhaps this does come from a general "Kids these days are online too much" sort of sentiment, but anti-fragility by itself doesn't really directly suggest we should deny kids internet access.

I really don't know what to think of the man's political leanings, but I don't trust his scholarship much either way. Any time I try to fact-check him, I come up with rather inconclusive or small effects.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 2 years ago

"Haidt has a whole career built around demonizing letting children use the internet."

Social media is not "the internet".

Looking at the total volume of Haidt's publications over his academic career, most have nothing to do with the internet, social media or even computers.

Further, only a minority of his books are about the computers or the internet.

As such, this statement does not appear to be supported by facts.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 2 years ago

"IDK why, but it doesn't really support his hypothesis that social media has some sort of catastrophic impact worth banning."

Does the term "hypothesis" in this sentence mean something like "a general supposition" or does it have the meaning as used in scientific research.

The former definition does not require evidence or proof. The later definition of course requires that the hypothesis be a statement that is falsifiable.

The phrase "worth banning" is a personal value judgment. "Catastrophic" is also a subjective measure. Neither is falsifiable.

Perhaps this is why the blog suggests using a legal standard such as preponderance of the evidence rather than a scientific one.

As everyone living in the real world knows, parental decisions, school decisions nor even state or federal laws are 100% based on scientific evidence, generally.

People make arguments. Evidence of varying quality is presented. People draw on their own experiences. Money, e.g., marketing and lobbying, plays a significant role. It is not a scientific process.

belorn2• 2 years ago

The style and quality on this research seems extremely similar to past research on teenage porn viewing, except that with social media usage it is teenage girls and with porn usage it is teenage boys. Correlation with negative traits are always minor and generally with the negative traits leading towards more viewing rather than the reverse.

Since politicians seems to like drafting laws and in other ways have a strong opinion here, it seems like those areas should get some more funding in order to really establish if there is a harmful effect and if so, how strong it is.

theshrike79• 2 years ago

It's not the phone, it's the fact that parents let their kids on social media.

The age limit is 13 on ALL social media platforms. Including Discord (which is a bummer, it's handy for voice chat when playing Minecraft).

I've seen friends of my kids have Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok accounts at 9 or 10 years old. Unless they get complete unfettered access with no parental controls the parents have installed them on their devices and created an account.

Xen9• 2 years ago

Mental health research feels silly to me. When humans are put to live in small apartments and pushed their entire lives to obey the BUY and VOTE commands, they will of course go insane. It's questionable whether anything can be done about this but those who live in the illusion that there was no complete behavioural control of the average homo sapiens and use false models of the causes of the mental issue problems, that somehow do not go after the socio-political root causes IE judge the abusers, not only betray themselves but those who they seek to help the most.

To englighten: Smartphone could be the most useful cognitively beneficial, amazing tool a children can have. Your own photography, recordings, books, and all your friends available to call on a single device is plain wonderful. But the smartphone, the PDA, has been made a tool of surveillance and manipulation. The average parent does not comprehend the problem or have any technical capability. Children usually are directed to fitting in socially. If nothing else, the children will watch Youtube videos on their friends phone and soon start to idealize them, else you will not know what the other children even speak about, when they have been manipulated to worship a brand or to support some political agenda indirectly. They will not be able to cut all the harms out of it.

World has three classes: owners, hermits and pets. Because majority homo sapiens belongs to the lowest class, the species tolerates most animal abuse out of primates.

28304283409234• 2 years ago

Smartphone "with Internet access that you could carry with you?”

I'd say the free and unsupervised internet access is the problem. Not the device.

Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults with Worse Mental Health (2023)

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