Smartphones and social media linked to increase in teen depression
When San Diego State University Professor Jean Twenge, a psychologist who studies generational shifts, saw a spike in teen mental health issues between 2011 and 2015, she wanted to find out why. The spike, she explains, was sudden, with major depressive episodes among teens increasing by 50 percent within those few years. “It was the start of a journey in what changed in teens’ lives,” she says. With more examination, Twenge recognized that the rise of the smartphone among teenagers coincided with the rise of teens’ feelings of uselessness, as well as with the fall of their satisfaction and happiness. “The largest change and most pervasive change in teens’ lives was more smartphones and more time on social media,” she says. Smartphones had disrupted the majority of teens’ lives, including time they used to spend socializing in person and sleeping. “It would be extremely surprising if the shift toward teens spending the majority of...