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Kids who own smartphones before age 13 have worse mental health outcomes: Study

254 points by donsupreme

by skylurk

7 subcomments

Soon:
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  Adults who have smartphones have worse mental heath outcomes: Study
```
Whatever the safe level of smartphone usage is, most of us are above it.

by DoctorOW

1 subcomments

Dang, et al., go.com needs the subdomain visible, all go.com means is that it's a Disney owned brand.

by stopbulying

7 subcomments

Is owning a smartphone more or less dangerous than owning a cat?
"Cat Ownership Linked to Increased Risk of Schizophrenia, Research Suggests" https://www.sciencealert.com/owning-a-cat-could-double-your-...
> "After adjusting for covariates, we found that individuals exposed to cats had approximately twice the odds of developing schizophrenia,"

by torginus

3 subcomments

I don't know many children who are 13 today and don't have a smartphone - in fact it was quite a common thing even a decade ago - how do you even control for this

by thebigspacefuck

3 subcomments

How’s this compare to computer/internet usage? I’ve been chronically online most years since age 7 but didn’t get a smartphone until 22 or so.

by captainkrtek

0 subcomment

I've struggled throughout my life with anxiety, ADHD, and bouts of depression.
I've done years of therapy, and use some medication to help with my ADHD. I will say though, singlehandedly, the best (and hardest) thing I've had to do is fight my own phone/internet/computer usage.
I grew up with computers and still work professionally with them day to day, but have made a serious effort in the last year to cut down my usage in an extreme manner:
- Using a 'brick' device to control which apps work on my phone, requiring I physically tap my phone to the brick to lock/unlock the restricted mode. This is always on.
- Blocking tons of sites via multiple means (iOS screen time, eero network profiles)
- Turning my iPhone into a very very basic phone: in "bricked" mode, which I will find myself using for continuous days at a time, I can only use: gmail, photos, notes, weather, maps, spotify, telephone, imessage. No news, no internet browsing, no social media.
- I've deleted all social media accounts (except LinkedIn, but this too is blocked on my phone).
From all of this, the initial realization was, "wow, I'm bored..", which is hard at first to sit with as a feeling, when normally my first instinct to that feeling was "let's open some app/youtube/etc." Then you slowly find positive things creeping in to occupy that boredom time: reading, calling friends/family, getting chores done, etc. And for anything "restricted" that I can't do on my phone, I largely can do on my computer (though I still block sites like reddit, youtube). But this is much healthier as I'm much less likely to pick up my laptop for hours on end, vs. opening my phone at every moment I'm bored.

by CaliforniaKarl

5 subcomments

In the US, we restrict driving to around age 16, alcohol consumption to 18, voting to 18, and tobacco consumption to 21. Then there are industry-applied age ratings, like the MPA’s PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings. Barbiturates and amphetamines we’re once available without a prescription.
There’s official/unofficial wiggle room, but there are limits. For example, if you live on a farm, you may be driving on the farm before you have a license to drive on public roads.
I could see mobile-phone ownership becoming similarly-restricted.

by kfarr

0 subcomment

The math checks out for this campaign at least: https://www.waituntil8th.org/

by thebigspacefuck

0 subcomment

I wonder how many 5-6 year olds are getting smartphones because parents are divorced and one parent wants to be able to check in on the other, could be something like that is the issue

by dcchambers

1 subcomments

Reading Jonathan Haidt's 'The Anxious Generation' broke me. I have two kids, still far too young for smartphones, but his book and all of the surrounding research has made me DRASTICALLY alter the way I use my own smartphone and will shape the way I treat phones with them.
If you have kids, take the "wait until 8th" pledge: https://www.waituntil8th.org/
No smart phones until after 8th grade.

by groundzeros2015

0 subcomment

Impossible to separate from level of parental care.

by bethekidyouwant

0 subcomment

Keeping your kids away from screens requires a significant parental effort

by udev4096

0 subcomment

It really depends. Not all kids are extremely dumb and get hooked by very obvious attempts from evil social networks. I still have hope for future aaron swartzs and linus torvaldss

by chanux

1 subcomments

What purpose does the id parameter doing this URL? The site does not work without it.

by throwout4110

0 subcomment

Horrifically terrible data and methodology for even suggesting causal claims. Global Mind Data is literally self report online survey data. You may as well have used political surveys from Fox News and MSNBC

by elwesties

0 subcomment

Honestly seems like a proxy for bad parents have sad kids. Makes logical sense to me.

by casey2

0 subcomment

You shouldn't stick your head in the sand just because it makes you feel better. Since media companies are causing damage then they should be held liable. Where is the class action?

by yooloo

0 subcomment

or ever

by zombiwoof

0 subcomment

[dead]

by kiuy

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by kiuy

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by kiuy

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by andai

0 subcomment

So, I can tell you my reaction when I was 13 and first saw a smartphone. (It must have been late 2007 or 2008.)
You know. Everything's round and cute and colorful. Like candy.
"Oh. This is for retarded people."
Unfortunately I was wrong.
It's actually much worse than that. It's for normal people. But it makes you retarded.
Slowly. You don't even notice it happening.
It eats away... day by day.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36256-4