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Kate Hawkesby: Is excessive smartphone use damaging kids' mental health?

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Wed, 25 Sep 2019, 10:39AM

Kate Hawkesby: Is excessive smartphone use damaging kids' mental health?

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Wed, 25 Sep 2019, 10:39AM

Given it's Mental health Awareness Week, it seems an obvious time to reassess the role screens play in our mental health.

We know being plugged into the world 24/7 via a screen in our hands is not the best thing for our mental state, yet so many of us can't part with them.

The research is mixed on what our digital existence is doing to our mental health.

One study, out of the University of California, found little evidence between excessive smartphone use and mental health outcomes.

Meanwhile, other studies show it’s the advent of social media that’s to blame for mental health stats spiking in young people.

One US researcher found that when kids started migrating onto social media sites in huge numbers, that's when mental health stats started going haywire with high rates of anxiety and depression. He found social media impacted kids development at a time "when they're learning to be social” - something he claims girls are more sensitive to than boys.

But a study out of California which surveyed more than 2000 young people, found few adverse effects to teens using smartphones.

The study tracked young adolescents on their smartphones, to test whether more time spent using digital technology was linked to worse mental health outcomes. It found little evidence of any.

So how’s that possible?

Here, an online school census filled out by 23 thousand New Zealand students, showed a third felt they spent too much time on their phones. And by too much time, the average was 3 to 4 hours after school on screens.

Two thirds of Kiwi kids have their own cellphone by age 11. By their first year of High School that number jumps to just over 90 percent.

Usually figures like that strike horror into the hearts of parents, who’re endlessly debating screen time limits, age of cellphone use, and what’s good, what’s bad.

But more confusing these days are the conflicting messages around whether it’s damaging to their mental health or not.

This California study which claims there’s no real evidence of links between phone use and mental health, actually reported that teens who sent more text messages felt better and less depressed, than teens who sent texts less often.

The obvious answer lies with the individual, and their ability to regulate what they're accessing online.

If something's anxiety-promoting, or upsetting, do we have the wherewithal to just step away?

Well we as adults might, but kids and teens might not.

So it's a good reminder to check in with what our kids are accessing online, and how it's making them feel, given we want to be reducing mental health stats in this country, not increasing them.

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