Effects Of Smartphones On Teenagers

    (summary) In the article “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?”, Jean M. Twenge discusses the effects smartphones have created on younger generations. Twenge is a psychologist who has been researching the differences in generations for 25 years. In accordance to Twenge, smartphones have significantly increased the rates in teen depression and suicide. Twenge describes the generation iGen (born between 1995 and 2012) as being on the verge of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Twenge’s research shows statistics on many factors that are affected by social media, smartphones, and the internet. For example, the number of teens feeling lonely or depressed has increased significantly since 2011. The number of teens that do activities outside of home is another example. According to Twenge, the number of teens that go out with their

“The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health” (Twenge). In her article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, Jean Twenge discusses how the new generation of teenagers is becoming highly dependent on their smartphones. Twenge calls this new generation born between the late 1990s and early teens “iGen” after a recent survey found that the majority of teenagers owned an iPhone. She argues that with every new generation, new habits form, both good and bad. The technological developments that have occurred throughout the last ten years, Twenge argues, is not a bad thing; it is how the “iGen” teenagers are becoming reliant on their phones and use them to avoid social interactions. According to her article, teenagers choose to stay home alone in their rooms and talk to their friends virtually on social media versus actually leaving the house and doing something face-to-face with their friends. Twenge argues that if teenagers decide to leave the house, phones still have a strong presence, often not leaving the hands of its owner for longer than a couple minutes with social media like Snapchat and Instagram tagging along. Twenge worries that the strong dependency on smartphones and increasing rates of obsession with social media are a couple of the largest contributors to the rise of depression and suicide among the teenagers of “iGen”.

The world has changed greatly in the last few centuries due to remarkable inventions. In the article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?,” Jean M. Twenge argues that the smartphone in particular has made a significant impact on the world, specifically in adolescents growing up at this time. Twenge’s argument that cell phones have drastically changed the way today’s adolescents think and behave is not entirely effective because she overlooks certain aspects in her claim that teenagers are physically safer than ever. She also only includes one piece of evidence that somewhat contributes to her claim that smartphones are decreasing the mental health of teenagers. Additionally, her substantial presumptions that decreased social ability results

In her article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, Jean Twenge discusses how the new generation of teenagers are becoming highly dependent on their smartphones and need them alongside them at any given point in time. Twenge calls this new generation born between the late 1990s and early teens “iGen” after a recent survey found that majority of teenagers owned an iPhone. She argues that with every new generation, new habits form, both good and bad. The technological developments that have occurred in the last ten years Twenge argues are not a bad thing, it is how the “iGen” teenagers are becoming reliant on their phones and using them to avoid social interactions. They would choose to stay home alone in their rooms and talk to their friends virtually on social media versus actually leaving the house and doing something face-to-face with their friends. Twenge argues that if teenagers decide to leave the house, phones still have a strong presence, often not leaving the hands of its owner for longer than a couple minutes with social media like Snapchat and Instagram tagging along. Twenge worries that the strong dependency on smartphones and increasing rates of obsession with social media are a couple of the largest contributors to the rise of depression and suicide among the teenagers of “iGen”.

Ever since smartphones were created, they have changed teenagers’ lives entirely. The article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? by Jean Twenge, shows the ways the invention of the smartphone has changed recent generations. The article mentions the rise in teen depression and suicide, cyberbullying, and teen safety. It also mentions the decline in our social abilities, dating, and sleep. Smartphones have had both negative and positive affects on teenagers, but the negatives significantly outweigh the positives, which points to the need to put down the smartphones, as the article suggests.

According to Twenge, the number of teens that go out with their friends has decreased by 40 percent compared to earlier generations. Twenge compares iGens to different generations such as Gen X (born between 1965 and early 1984), baby boomers (1946-1964) and Millennials (born around 1982-2002). Twenge emphasizes on the time teenagers spend on their phones. Social media plays a huge role in this. In accordance to Twenge, different forms of social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are what teenagers spend more time on. According to Twenge, the more time teens spend on smartphones the greater they are at risk for suicide, depression, and loneliness. Twenge also explains how teens are not receiving an adequate amount of sleep, many teens now sleep less than seven hours. Twenge concludes the article by sharing her own experience with her children and technology, she recommends parents to limit the time their children spend on phones. (59-65)

Jean Twenge’s article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, uses multiple points to explain how she believes smartphones are hurting the health of the post-Millennial generation. She repeatedly makes the point that this new wave of teenagers lacks an interest in gaining freedom from their parents and other restrictions in their lives. For example, Twenge wrote that post-Millennials are getting their driver's licenses significantly later than the Baby Boomer generation and often wait to get jobs until after they graduate because they don’t need to physically get away from their parents to connect online with their friends. Twenge also makes the argument that iPhones are causing an increase in depression and anxiety rates among

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?, by Jean M. Twenge, was published in the September 2017 Issue of The Atlantic. Twenge discusses the impacts of smartphones in teens (also referred to as “iGen’s”) today and attempts to determine if smartphones have caused a generation to falter in their mental and physical health. The author interviews a 13 year old girl about issues teens are developing due to these devices. She examines the spike in teen suicide rates since the invention of the smartphone, how teens no longer go out and socialize with others, and the lack of sleep teens may be getting due to smartphone activity.

6. Children are at an increased risk for adverse health effects from cell phone radiation. One

One way that teens are being impacted by over using their cell phones is emotionally. A study by Adriana Bianchi, and James G. Phillips showed the more teens use their phones the more likely they are to be anxious, depressed, and have a low self-esteem

Technological advances have increased dramatically in the past 40 years. Martin Cooper invented the first cellular phone in 1973, which was called the Dyna Tec, while working for the famous company Motorola. The first cellular phone did not sell well because it was as large as a brick. So now knowing how technology has advanced, it is obvious to see why it is advancing. Although technological advances have affected both the generalized public and society’s teenagers, it seems to have had a larger effect on society’s teenagers, specifically the advances in cellular phones. Not only does cellular phone usage affect a teenager’s social life and literacy, but it also affects their health. Cellular phones have a great impact on a teenager’s social life. The following solution would also be in their best interest without them even realizing it. The over use of cell phones by teenagers will have a negative effect on their academic, social, and mental development.

Luigi Gallimberti, et. al discusses in their article “Problematic Cell Phone Use for Text Messaging and Substance Abuse in Early Adolescence (11- to 13-year-olds),” that problematic cell phone use (PCPU), is associated with psychological distress, low self-esteem, depression, drug abuse, insomnia, and thoughts of suicide (356). The overuse of cellphones can really detriment a person mentally and could cause them to arrive at one of these issues stated. An issue also arises when a person with a cell phone addiction is in school. They tend to remain unfocused while on their phones and they don’t participate during class. In a sample, the students who had better test grades were less likely to have a problematic cell phone addiction (Gallimberti, et. al 360). This finding confirms the positive association between cell phone addiction and poor performance in school. In schools, it was concluded that this overuse of cellphones was positively connected with deficient school performance in teens with an average age of 15.7 years old (Gallimberti, et. al 360). Aviad Hadar studies in his article “Answering the Missed Call: Initial Exploration of Cognitive and Electrophysiological Changes Associated With Smartphone Use and Abuse” that cell phone addiction was studied to be linked with reduced attention, changes in how someone processes, stores, and applies information about other people and social

However there had done others study that express the connection between cell phones and different types of biological damage to human body. For example The European Journal of Scientific Research conducted a lab experiment with normal human astrocytes, an LG Verizon cell phone and MRET-Nylon chip. The experiment revealed that normal human astrocytes cell that were exposed to cell phone radiation at a room temperature without the MRET-Nylon chip decreased by 20% less . Igor Smirnov is one of the author of this experiment and he stated on his article that "It is well documented that cell phones, which emit electromagnetic fields in the radio frequency range, can cause DNA damage, headaches, blurred vision, dizziness,fatigue, short term memory loss, neuralgias, tumors, sleep disturbances, aberrant brain wave activity and changes to cerebral blood flow, including altering the permeability of the blood brain barrier" (Smirnov, 2009). Smirnov statement and finding about the emission of electromagnetic wave from cell phones gives a lot to think. Even-tough it's a small amount of radiation that is being emitted from cell-phones, because they are held very close to the head at the end of a long term usage the risk of brain cancer and others health problems will

Along with the large and still growing number of smartphone and social media users, the time people spend on their phones has risen in recent decades. Today’s adolescents have taken a special interest in social media and smartphones because it allows them to chat and share photos with their friends and families. As the most prevalent users, many adolescent girls have become addicted to using social networking platforms or sites, such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Kik, and smartphones, such as the iPhone, Samsung, among others. Using smartphones and social media have side effects and only a few adolescent girls are paying attention to the impact it has on their mental and emotional well-being. Although these technologies have positive impacts on social life, the excessive use of both social media and smartphones affects the happiness and mental health of adolescent girls.

From having good grades, to studying for the ACT, in addition to trying to fit into the social aspect in high school a teens life has never been more hard. And the invention of the smartphone has only added to the amount of stress that a teen has to deal with. The smartphone has created an environment in which adolescents are always connected with those they go to highschool with, through the use of social media. For example if a bully were to be picking on a student at school the student could not just go home and forget about the incident, but now the bully has the ability to abuse that student at any point he/she desires. These types of incidents are creating a new wave of problems for adolescents and their parents, Nojiri Matthew interviewed Rick Wolf (assistant superintendent at Mifflin School district) explaining “The increase in social media use has added another element when identifying and caring for kids dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other mental health disorders, Wolf said” (Wolf). The smartphone is the catalyst to these problems. If you were to take away the smartphone problems such as cyberbullying would be less of an issue. However adolescents these days are given smartphones at such a young age, with no supervision on how long they use it throughout the day, that it becomes second nature to be looking at it every minute of everyday checking their social media profiles.