As smartphone ownership among teens went from zero to 73-percent, much of their time has been devoted to social media sites. But is this causing a decline in their mental wellness?

The Press Herold shared a story about a study that was recently published in the journal Emotion.

Psychologists from San Diego State University and the Unversity of Georgia used targeted data from roughly 1.1 million teens in the U.S. to try and find out why life satisfaction, happiness, and self-esteem have gone down since 2012.

The question was asked as to whether or not this had something to do with the introduction of smartphones in 2007?

By 2012, about 37-percent of teens owned a smartphone.

By 2016, about 77-percent of Americans carried a smartphone, iPhone, or something similar to it. Of the 77-percent of Americans who owned one of these devices, 73-percent of teens owned one by this time also.

According to some observations and studies, the impact of smartphones on teens has been all over the place.

Some studies have shown that the more time a teen uses their smartphone for online usage has resulted in an unhappier child with a low self-esteem.

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However, other studies have shown that there is evidence that avid participation in online social media plays a positive role in a teenagers self-image.

This is what the new study has found.

Researchers have tried to find the 'sweet spot' of social media usage among teens. The new study states that they got with teens in 8th grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade to see what they felt about their life and how they used their time.

What they found was teens who spent more screen time on electronic devices viewing the internet, playing games, and engaging on social media sites were less happy, had lower self-esteem, and were less satisfied with their life.

On the other hand, they found that teens who spent more time outside of the electronic screens and media sites had higher psychological well-being.

They also had a tendency to lean toward a higher self-esteem, profess more happiness, and were overall more satisfied with their life.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think teens tend to be less engaged who spend more time on the screen than off? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. We'd like to know what you think.

 

 

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