Psychologist Haidee reflects on reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt which puts smartphone use in the spotlight as a potential cause of poor mental wellbeing in young adults
How has the smartphone shaped your life, and the lives of your friends? Can you even remember what life was like before smartphones were invented?
In his book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to compelling statistical evidence showing a marked increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide rates among young people, particularly since 2010. He links these trends to the simultaneous rise of smartphones and social media, which he argues have created a “perfect storm” of factors that undermine mental wellbeing. These include the four “foundational harms” of social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.
Life without a smartphone these days seems impossible. So how can we minimise the negative impacts our smartphones might be having on our mental health? Here are a few experiments worth trying:
Harm #1: Social deprivation
Research shows that young people who spend more time using social media are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, whereas young people who spend more time with other young people have better mental health.
Experiment: How much time do you spend alone in your bedroom consuming a bottomless feed of other people’s content? How does it feel when you go out and spend time with your friends instead?
Research shows that when two people are having a conversation and one of them pulls out their phone, the quality and intimacy of the social interaction is reduced.
Experiment: How does it feel when you are with a friend, and you keep your phone out of sight in your pocket or bag?
Harm #2: Sleep deprivation
Studies have found significant causal relationships between high social media use and poor sleep. Other highly stimulating smartphone activities, such as mobile gaming and video streaming, also lead to poor sleep. This is both because of direct competition with sleep (you’re on your phone when you should be sleeping), and because of the high dose of blue light delivered to the retina, which tells the brain: It’s morning time! Stop making melatonin! Sleep deprivation is extremely well studied, and its effects include depression, anxiety, irritability, difficulty learning and remembering, lower grades, and more accidents.
Experiment: How is your sleep affected when you stop using your phone after 9pm?
Harm #3: Attention fragmentation
An average student’s phone vibrates repeatedly throughout the day as it receives alerts from messaging apps, social media apps, and a variety of news sites. This never-ending stream of alerts means that it is rare to have five or ten minutes to think without an interruption.
Experiment: What happens when you leave your phone in another room or in a locker when you are studying?
Harm #4: Addiction
Addictive apps mess with our dopamine systems. When we are using the apps, our brains release dopamine (which feels good), and when we become addicted to the apps, ordinary life feels boring. This is because the addicted brain adapts to long periods of elevated dopamine by “downregulating” dopamine transmission. The addicted person is in a state of withdrawal, where nothing feels good anymore. To be clear, the great majority of young people using smartphones are not addicted, but heavy users are often addicted to some degree. Symptoms of withdrawal include anxiety, irritability, and a sense of dysphoria (unease).
Experiment: What happens when you delete your Instagram app from your phone, and only access Instagram from your home computer?
The take-home message is that we have the ability to change the ways we use our smartphones so that they do not impact us negatively. Consider trying one of the experiments listed above – and we would love to hear back from you with the results!
