I remember attending a family gathering around Christmastime, where a myriad of cousins came to socialize, catch up, and most importantly, eat (typical Filipino events always revolve around food). I have a big family; you couldn’t walk about freely without nearly tripping over small children; my cousins and second cousins.
Many of those little ones were guaranteed a full evening’s worth of entertainment thanks to the iPads and Kindle Fires they had in tow. I recall feeling extremely annoyed by the end of Christmas Day, having heard the song “Let it Go” from the movie “Frozen” blare from my youngest girl cousin’s iPad at least 25 times. What bothered me more than the repetition of 2013’s most overplayed song was the fact that the children who owned iPads -- at the time, these kids were under the age of five or six -- seemed to replace normal social interaction and child’s play with a portable screen. For many of these children, a smart device had become a babysitter of sorts. Perhaps this is why I resonate with a recent article I read from The Atlantic, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” In the article, San Diego State University professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge writes about the generational shifts between the teens of today and past decades, specifically as it relates to the rise of technology. Twenge quotes her young, 13-year-old social media-savvy niece as saying “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like people.” I found this very telling. At 25, I can recall Internet being around for most of my life, but I still remember the days of dial-up and corded phones. I remember bringing books, not iPads or smartphones, with me to keep me occupied when I accompanied my mom on her errands. I also remember a time when the word “like” meant approval and not the click of a Facebook button. Twenge pinpoints the two biggest differences between today’s teens and the teens of prior generations: 1. their view of the world, and 2. how they spend their time. In 2012, Twenge writes, roughly 50 percent of Americans owned a smartphone. In 2017, a survey of 5,000 American teens showed that three out of four of them owned a smartphone. Smartphone ownership and evolving social media platforms have led to major changes in the behaviors of today’s teens versus the teens of just a few decades ago. “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,” Twenge writes. Twenge implies that this may be because instead of taking advantage of the responsibilities and opportunities that come with young adulthood, teens are stuck on their phones, letting life pass them by. Young people today are working less, dating less, are less sexually active, getting their driver’s license later in life and sadly, are more likely to experience symptoms of depression the longer they’re glued to their smartphones, according to Twenge. They’re also prone to experience “FOMO” (the fear of missing out), feelings of loneliness, cyberbullying, sleep deprivation, and quite likely, emotional distance from family or friends. Twenge writes, “Adolescence is a key time for developing social skills; as teens spend less time with their friends face-to-face, they have fewer opportunities to practice them.” To be honest, I have wondered if the term “social anxiety” is used too loosely today, perhaps as a safe replacement buzzword to describe teens’ inability or unwillingness to communicate with each other in real-time. While my teen years are long behind me, I’m far from perfect when it comes to my smartphone habits. Perhaps it’s ingrained in me, due to my two-year stint as a journalist, that I always keep my phone within easy reach. I check my social media accounts often to see if I’ve missed anything important. Maybe I’m more similar than I realize to the teens Twenge describes in her research. Some may argue that while Twenge makes the association between social media/smartphone use and depression, it does not necessarily equate to causation. However, I completely agree with Twenge when she writes, “The correlations between depression and smartphone use are strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone.” Perhaps next family gathering, my adult cousins will be encouraging their children to do just that.
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