Kids these days.

So goes the rallying cry of those who haven’t grown up with a smartphone (or smart device) glued to their palm, usually whilst talking about how much respect they had for their elders and how tough they had it.

If you want some real insight into the actual effect these devices have had (and are having), however, you’re going to need to get stuck into the Atlantic’s exceptional piece titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”

It’s a long one, crammed full of the good stuff, so to summarise it is going to prove tricky. We’ll set the scene:

I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology…

Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors [sic] and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it…

What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior … it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.

It’s here that things get messy:

Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones…

There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.

…the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.

In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar. But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much. In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half…

Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds.

Still here? OK, how about the results from The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

They have asked 12th-graders more than 1 000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The results – not pretty:

The results could not be clearer: 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 nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.

There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness…

If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen. Of course, these analyses don’t unequivocally prove that screen time causes unhappiness; it’s possible that unhappy teens spend more time online. But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness…

Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan.

Some graphs to drive home the point:

I’m going to wrap it up here, but what you see above just scratches the surface of what is covered.

Food for thought, and perfect fodder for those looking to take a few stabs at ‘the youth’.

Consider this one today’s recommended reading – read the full piece HERE.

[source:atlantic]