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Subject: [EXTERNAL] Fwd: Press Release Teens who spend less time in front of screens are happier - up to a point, new
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Subject: Press Release Teens who spend less time in front of screens are happier - up to a point, new research
shows
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PRESS RELEASE
(P.R.D.D.C.)
PARENTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN
CRAIG A. DURFEY FOUNDER OF P.R.D.D.C.
GARDEN GROVE, CA 92842
CELL
SOCIALEMOTIONALPAWS.COM
FACEBOOK: CRAIG DURFEY
U.S. III USIE OF COINGIRIESS IH2404 .- HONORING G IR IIG DURFEY IFOR H11S IFIGHT AGAIIINST AUTIISM ...
IMs. LOWE'l rA S IN01-CEZ of Celiifoirirniln.
https://www. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2003-03-27/pdf/C REC-2003-03-27.pdf
new website socialemotionalpaws.org
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11/28/22, 8:50 AM Mail - Public Comment - Outlook
To whom it may concern.
Teens who spend less time in front of screens are
happier up to a point, new research shows
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In recent months, Silicon Valley executives have been speaking out about the
purposefully addictive designs of smartphones and social media, which make them
hard to put down for anyone, but particularly teenagers. Now, a new report puts
numbers to the warnings by tying a sudden and large drop in adolescents'
happiness with the proliferation of smartphones and finding that the more hours a
day teens spend in front of screens, the less satisfied they are.
The repart, "Decreases in Psychological Well -Being Among American Adolescents
After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology,"
was published Monday in the journal Emotion using a large national survey of
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eighth, 10th and 12th graders conducted annually by the University of Michigan.
After rising since the early 1990s, adolescent self-esteem, life satisfaction and
happiness plunged after 2012, the year smartphone ownership reached the 50
percent mark in the United States, the report said. It also found that adolescents'
psychological well-being decreased the more hours a week they spent on screens,
including with the Internet, social media, texting, gaming and video chats. The
findings jibe with earlier studies linking frequent screen use to teenage depression
and anxiety.
K
YOU
The ubiquity of the devices has mushroomed in the past six years. The percentage
of teens who had smartphones jumped from 37 percent in 2012 to 73 percent in
2015 to 89 percent at the end of 2016, according to data from the Pew Research
Center and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The Emotion study graphed correlations between happiness and screen activities
and non -screen activities such as sports, in-person interactions, religious services,
print media and homework. For all the non -screen activities, the correlation was
positive; for the screen activities, it was uniformly negative.
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00When 1 made that graph, 1 got up and took my kids' Kindle Fires and shoved them in
the back of a drawer," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State
University and the study's lead author.
Twenge, who is also the author of 11i n® Why Moday's Su er-ConnectedKids are
Growin _ Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happ — and CompLetely
re -ared for ," called the relationship of screen and non -screen
activities "zero sum" — if you are doing one, it takes time away from the others.
Diane Tanman of Chevy Chase, Md., worries that is the case for her sons, 11 and 15.
"Like playing games in the field like they used to when they were little — they used
to do that, and 1 think it made them happier," she said.
These days her sons are more into online games, many of which
have rewards built in to keep players coming back. "I think it's
addictive," Tanman said. "It's just junk food for the brain.... I don't
know one parent who doesn't worry about it."
As with any addiction, breaking away can be unpleasant. Ed
Lazzara of Salem, Ore., says his 12 -year-old son, Leo, a fan of the
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game Minecraft, is more irritable after he has been playing a lot.
"It's like interacting in the real world doesn't have that zing, you
know?" Lazzara said.
The report's findings were not all dire: Teenagers who get a small amount of
exposure to screen time, between one and five hours a week, are happier than
those who get none at all. The least happy ones were those who used screens for
20 or more hours a week.
The greater unhappiness among those with no screen exposure could be due to
several factors, Twenge said. "It could be that they are left out of the social scene
of high school, that it's very difficult to carry on friendships in high school these
days without texting at all or being on social media." It is also possible that those
kids are outliers, she said — teens with special needs or in special education, or
those whose screens have been taken away from them by parents.
The happiest teens, according to the study, are those who are
above average in face-to-face social interaction time and below
average in social media use.
Amanda Lenhart, deputy director of the Better Life Lab at New
America who has conducted studies on teenagers and screen
use, called the study interesting but said it is hard to separate
screen time from other stressors that may affect teenagers'
happiness, such as the political or economic landscape. "The
culturally easy scapegoat right now is the technology — it's new,
it's scary, it's changed our lives, it's changed our kids' lives," she
said.
While she generally advises moderation, Lenhart said that rather
than making one set of rules about when and how much screen
time teens should have, she prefers a case-by-case approach.
"Some of it is about your particular kid and your particular life and
you as a parent," she said. "Some of it is you looking at your child
and saying, 'Something is not right here."'
Technology -free schools do exist — including some in Silicon Valley that tech titans
have sent their own children to. And movements such as Wait Until 8th have urged
parents to delay giving smartphones to kids until high school or just before. But
even Bill Gates, who is known for limiting his children's access to technology,
allowed them to get phones by age 14.
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Melinda s has s ent her career i tech wishes she'd t her kids ajgLay
from it IoLygar
Marina Bowsher, the mother of a 14 -year-old boy and a 12 -year-old girl in Chevy
Chase, views screen time "like dessert — sure you can have some once in a while,
but it shouldn't be part of your every day."
However, she and her husband decided to relax her rules against gaming after
helping their niece move into college at George Washington University and noticing
that "every boy was carrying around an Xbox ... and suddenly there was no monitor.
It's like drinking; nobody's telling you no." They decided it was better for their son to
learn to regulate his gaming in high school, when he still had parents to help, than
to have to learn how in college when no one was watching. Their son also has a
smartphone and a laptop; their daughter has a phone with no social media
accounts. "It's all around them, and they are going to have to learn to live with it in
their society," Bowsher said.
But the finer points of screen use in today's society are still
evolving. Earlier this month, investors in Apple, the maker of the
Whone, signed an open letter demanding more options for parental
regulation of phones, such as the ability to limit their use to
certain hours or shut off social media access at a certain time
each day.
The letter, which Twenge helped draft, cited research showing negative
psychological effects of phone use on teens and noted parents' "constant battle"
over screen time, calling it "unrealistic and a poor long-term business strategy to
ask parents to fight this battle alone." Apple responded by saying it is planning new
enhancements to increase parental control.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/01 /22/teens-who-spend-
less-ti me -i n -front -of -screens -are -happier -u p -to -a -point -new -research -shows/
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