Smartphones: Digital Drugs
The period between birth and the end of high school has long been appreciated as a sacred developmental period where protections are intuitively woven into our care for children. The neurobiological and emotional sensitivity of kids has been understood and recognized for decades as requiring guardrails to protect against overstimulation and harmful unintegrated experiences.
A smartphone, unlike previous technological advancements, is not neutral. It wants something from you all the time. And that something is attention. Tech companies have deliberately created a portable device, whose compelling and overstimulating dynamic is beyond kids' ability to manage and regulate. They have strategically weaponized this vulnerability for profit.
Technology is a dimensional and spectacular tool, but in the hands of kids and adolescents, it is an overstimulating device with powerfully addictive potential that is rewiring teens’ brains in destructive ways.
Their robust addictive potential is akin to other addictions, such as alcoholism or drug abuse. The only difference is that these “digital drugs” are now woven into the fabric of everyone’s lives.
Despite tech companies knowing this, they continue to market and promote inherently overstimulating devices to younger and younger children.
An aspect of our mission is to publicly challenge this for-profit marketing approach and to pivot the national narrative back to the protection of our children’s neurobiological and psychological development.
The Data
Since 2014-15, there has been a 22 percentage point rise in the share of teens who report having access to a smartphone (95% now and 73% then).
Around seven-in-ten teens (72%) say they often or sometimes check for messages or notifications as soon as they wake up.
The share of teens who say they are online almost constantly has roughly doubled since 2014-15 (46% now and 24% then).
The vast majority of teens have access to digital devices, such as smartphones (95%), desktop or laptop computers (90%) and gaming consoles (80%).
More than half of teens (56%) associate the absence of their phone with at least one of three emotions: loneliness, being upset or feeling anxious. Girls are more likely than boys to feel anxious or lonely without their phone.
Roughly four-in-ten teen cellphone users (43%) say they often or sometimes use their phone to avoid interacting with people. This is truer for teen girls than teen boys. Roughly half of teen girls who have access to a cellphone (54%) say they often or sometimes use their mobile device to avoid social interaction, while 31% of teen boys report doing the same.
“The challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate. And the effect these challenges have had on their mental health is devastating.
Recent national surveys of young people have shown alarming increases in the prevalence of certain mental health challenges - in 2019, one in three high school students and half of female students reporters persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an overall increase of 40% from 2009. “
— Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA
U.S. Surgeon General