The Country School is an independent, coeducational, Pre-K through 8 school founded in 1934.

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iGen & Smart Phones

By: Neil Mufson
“Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on non-screen activities are more likely to be happy. There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness and all non-screen activities are linked to more happiness.” Jean Twenge, a research psychologist who focuses on generational differences, cites this troubling finding in her article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?” in September’s issue of The Atlantic.
 
Twenge’s research has also documented that members of “iGen,” what she calls the group born between 1995 and 2012, get together in-person with friends much less than prior generations; are less comfortable in a car or at a party than in their own bedrooms; go out less often, date less, and are slower to get drivers’ licenses; are more reluctant to be away from their parents; are physically safer than teens have ever been; “have less of a taste for alcohol”; and have sex for the first time on the average a year later than the average Gen Xer. She sums it up by remarking, “18 year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15 year-olds more like 13 year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.” While some of these trends are positive, the root cause is not.
 
Twenge notes that iGen kids demonstrate much higher levels of loneliness, isolation, depression, anxiety, and suicide than other generations, even “those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.” Twenge tracks these stark differences not just to smartphones and screen use, but ironically — you guessed it — to high levels of using social media on smartphones and iPads. This generation reports having “more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less,” yet with that time “they are on their phone, in their room alone, and often distressed.”
 
It comes as no surprise that iGen teens, like just about everyone these days, spend an enormous amount of time on their phones. But even families, many friends, and business associates have replaced in-person time with smartphone use, message checking, and “updates” have infiltrated into just about every phase and setting of life. From restaurants to the family dinner table, from during business meetings to any kind of conversation, our societal mores have rapidly changed to embrace smartphone use at just about any time. This clearly isn’t a phenomenon limited to the iGen. It is having widespread and very significant consequences.
 
What researchers are noting about iGen teens, though, is that their frequent use of social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram “exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out. Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly... Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant... especially among girls.”
 
Twenge cites some powerful statistics:
  • 48% more girls say they feel left out in 2015 than in 2010 (vs. 27% more boys);
  • girls use social media more often than boys;
  • depressive symptoms in girls increased by 50% from just 2012-2015 (vs. 21% in boys);
  • “three times as many 12 to 14 year-old girls killed themselves in 2015 as in 2007” but overall boys still commit suicide at a higher rate than girls;
  • girls are more likely to be cyber-bullied than boys.
A related piece appeared in this Sunday’s New York Times entitled, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. The patterns are similar.
 
Twenge’s article concludes by focusing on another side effect of more smartphone use than the average: significant increases in sleep deprivation. I will share that information and some potential solutions in a future “From the Headmaster.”
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