Survey examines teens, phones

Finds they are happier without

Nearly three-quarters of US teens say they feel happy or peaceful when they don’t have their phones with them, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.

In a survey published Monday, Pew also found that despite the positive associations with going phone-free, most teens have not limited their phone or social media use.

The survey comes as policy makers and children’s advocates are increasingly concerned with teens’ relationships with their phones and social media. Last fall, dozens of states, including California and New York, sued Instagram and Facebook owner Meta Platforms for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children. In January, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, and other social media companies went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about their platforms’ harms to young people.

‘These aren’t just teen issues, these are family issues and parent issues.’ MONICA ANDERSON Internet and technology research director at the Pew Research Center

Despite the increasing concerns, most teens say smartphones make it easier to be creative and pursue hobbies, while 45 percent said it helps them do well in school. Most teens said the benefits of having a smartphone outweigh the harms for people their age. Nearly all US teens (95 percent) have access to a smartphone, according to Pew.

The poll was conducted from Sept. 26-Oct. 23, 2023, among a sample of 1,453 pairs of teens with one parent, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Here are some of the survey's other findings:

■ About half of parents (47 percent) say they limit the amount of time their teen can be on their phone, while a similar share (48 percent) don’t do this.

■ Roughly 4 in 10 parents and teens say they at least sometimes argue with each other about how much time their teen spends on the phone. Ten percent in each group said this happens often, with Hispanic Americans the most likely to say they often argue about phone use.

■ Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of parents of 13- to 14-yearolds say they look through their teen’s smartphone, compared with 41 percent among parents of 15- to 17-year-olds.

■ Forty-two percent of teens say smartphones make learning good social skills harder, while 30 percent said it makes it easier.

The report also identified a disconnect between teens and their parents. Almost half of teenagers say their parents at least sometimes get distracted by their phones during conversations; 31 percent of parents said this is something they do.

The gap is just one of the many complicated issues parents and teens are navigating when it comes to phones.

“These aren’t just teen issues, these are family issues and parent issues,” said Monica Anderson, the report’s lead author and managing director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.