This news is nothing to cell-ebrate.
Some teen girls are clocking more than five hours a day on their smartphones — most are likely addicted to social media, a fixation that has been tied to poorer health and wellbeing, new research from Finland finds.
“The implications of nearly six hours of daily smartphone use and its associations with adolescent wellbeing are serious,” the study authors wrote in findings published Tuesday in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
In Finland, 1,164 female students 15 to 16 years old were recruited in 2022 to provide data about their screen time, which the researchers used to calculate phone usage and social media consumption.
Average daily smartphone use was 5.8 hours, and average time spent using social media was nearly four hours. No significant difference was found between weekdays or weekends.
The participants also rated their health, mood, tiredness, and loneliness.
The researchers reckoned that about 17% of the teens were possibly addicted to social media, while 37% showed signs of an anxiety disorder.
Social media addiction was linked to higher levels of anxiety, poorer body image, poorer health, lower mood, more tiredness and greater feelings of loneliness.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to combine objectively measured smartphone use with validated measures of social media addiction and well-being,” the researchers wrote.
They noted a few limitations to their study, including that they didn’t exclude anybody; some of the participants may have had pre-existing mental health problems; GPAs were self-reported; and some teens submitted incomplete phone data.
The researchers say that caregivers should establish tech-free zones and help teens foster in-person relationships, while policymakers should urge tech companies to prioritize safety and health in the development of social media.
The study authors called US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s 2023 advisory about social media’s effect on youth mental health “an important call to action.”
“While some advocate for increased mental health services to tackle the rise in adolescent anxiety, no services will suffice unless the root causes are addressed,” they wrote.
