Are Smartphones the New Alcohol?

I boarded the campus bus as I made my way to teach my first class of this semester. When I looked around, I was a bit disappointed as there was no one with whom to share my “first day of class” excitement. Everyone was staring at their phones.

It was hard to even smile and say “hello.” “Not to worry,” I thought. I maintained a hop in my step as I entered my classroom. This time, I was really disappointed. The students who had arrived were also staring at their phones. There was no conversation. The energy in the room that I anticipated was totally absent.

Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology and author of a number of books about generational differences, has studied the impact of technology (specifically the iPhone) on teenagers and young adults. Although she has identified some positive effects (e.g. lower teen pregnancy rates), she has pointed to many more negative outcomes (e.g. higher depression rates, lower social abilities, poor sleep). According to her, spending more than two hours a day on your smartphone or the internet (other than work and school related use) can be harmful.

As an observer and veteran educator, I can tell you that my experience aligns with Dr. Twenge’s findings. The dependence on a smartphone by teens (and adults alike) has moved towards addictive behavior. Many of us can’t resist looking at our phones!

As a parent, what should you do? Should you prohibit the use of a phone and/or monitor screen time? I’m skeptical of outright bans. Banning alcohol in the 1920s didn’t work and the effectiveness of raising the drinking age to 21 continues to be debated. Sometimes “forbidden fruit” becomes even more desirable.

I hope you’ll focus on one thing you can control: your own smartphone use. I can’t say with certainty what the right boundaries on screen time are for your family, but I can say with certainty that children tend to take after their parents.

When I see a family at a restaurant where everyone is using their phone, or a parent walking down the street holding their toddler’s hand but not taking their eyes off the screen in their hand, my college students’ phone use makes more sense to me. If we want our kids to use self-control when it comes to phones, we must show them what it looks like