PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Summer vacation is over. Teenagers are heading back to classrooms. And now is the time to free them from the self-imposed imprisonment of their smartphones and social media.
That's what Dr. Jean Twenge says. The psychologist has spent years studying the effects of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and the like on kids and their mental health.
It is easy to guess at some of the problems that can arise when kids bury their faces in their phones, but Twenge's research has uncovered something surprising: In today's super-connected world, a lot of teens say they are lonelier than ever.
"It is an interesting conundrum. Social media is supposed to connect us. So if that were true, if using social media frequently, being on your phone a lot made you feel constantly connected and thus less lonely, that's what we should see from about 2012 when smartphones became common until recently. We should see loneliness going down, Twenge said. "And in fact, we found exactly the opposite. We found substantial increases in loneliness among teens. And not just that -- it was worldwide: 36 out of 37 countries, loneliness increased between 2012 and 2018."
She says with the first relatively normal school year in two years beginning, now is the time to help kids make a change for the better.
"This is our chance to make sure they get that face-to-face social interaction that they need," Twenge said. "Because even before the pandemic, which is what our study covered, smartphones are available at schools. ... Kids are looking at their phones instead of talking to each other."
She says one thing to consider is to disallow smart phones during the school day, which would keep kids from being as distracted in class. And it would mean that they are forced to talk face to face.
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Twenge says the intention is not to turn back the clock. There are benefits to smartphone technology. And no one wants to be apart from their phone.
But she says there are a couple of straightforward solutions, apart from making phones unavailable during the school day, that could actually help young people better connect with each other and the world around themselves.
"Another [idea] is for social media companies to actually enforce their stated age requirement of age 13. So we can make sure that kids have the maturity that they need," she said.
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"And the No. 1 thing that I always say when I give talks to parents and teens themselves: No phones in the bedroom overnight. There are times and places for smartphones."
Twenge says it is a danger to mental and physical health if smartphones keep people awake late at night, or keep people from getting the sleep they need.
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"We really have to work together to find some of these larger solutions among groups of friends or the whole school or as a society to just make better choices in this area."
Twenge is author of "I, Gen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood."