Teenage phone use – is there really a problem?

More and more schools are choosing to ban phones, but what does the evidence really say?

The starting point to answer this question is a seminal book by Professor Jonathan Haidt called, ‘The Anxious Generation’. He cites the years 2010 to 2015 as the ‘Great Rewiring of Childhood’.

During this time social media took off and childhood shifted from being fundamentally play-based to phone-based, changing social patterns, role models, physical activity and sleep patterns in the course of just a few years. At the same time, there was an international surge in adolescent anxiety and depression.

Mental illness is, of course, a result of complex interactions between many causal elements, but the figures are stark. Since 2010 the rates of reported depression in teenagers increased by about 150%, with the surge clearly pre-dating the onset of COVID. Anxiety levels are even more concerning. Haidt cites a 2023 study of college students which found that 37% of the students felt anxious ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’.

Some have argued that these rises are due to greater awareness or a greater willingness to self-diagnose as the stigma around mental illness decreases. However, the rising numbers since 2010 are reflected in hospitalisations for self-harm and in suicide rates. For example, self-harm in UK teenagers has risen by 78% for girls since 2010 and 134% for boys. There are two key strands explaining the causal link between social media and mental health decline. Interestingly they are somewhat gendered. The first is the issue of social comparison and perfectionism, which has affected girls more than boys as they are subjected to more severe judgement and criticism for their looks than boys.

The iPhone 4, brought out in 2010, was the first to have a front-facing camera, making it much easier to take selfies. At the same time, Instagram was created and then bought by Facebook in 2012, expanding its user-base to 90 million by the beginning of 2013. Suddenly, everyone was comparing themselves with everyone else, and the app companies were quick to use this to their advantage by building in filters to keeping upping the comparison stakes.

Predictably, the percentage of teenagers reporting feeling satisfied with themselves collapsed. Of course, all of this requires grabbing and holding onto young peoples’ attention. And the app companies came up with a masterstroke to achieve this in the form of notifications. Especially notifications based on social acceptance, such as ‘likes’. What they quickly worked out was that notifications provided the kind of reward for phone-checking that is addictive in the same way as gambling can be. It’s based on something called variable ratio reinforcement. This is the idea that if you keep performing an action (making a bet or checking your phone) you know that eventually you will be rewarded (with a payout or a with a ‘like’). That reward could always come the very next time you perform the behaviour which is what makes it so addictive and is what keeps teenagers thinking about and reaching for their phone.

The mental health decline in boys has actually been apparent since the 1970s. However, like girls, this speeded up dramatically the 2010s. The probable reason for a different trajectory in boys is a long-term societal shift to become increasingly averse to unsupervised risky play in children. Adults’ assessment of what is risky for their children hit a perfect storm when local communities started to break up. Gradually the outside physical world seemed full of strangers and potential predators, whereas having your child sit at home on their tablet or smartphone seemed safe. The idea that the virtual world was dangerous just didn’t seem convincing when you could physically see you child at home. This intolerance of real-world risk has led boys to withdraw into the virtual world, and their mental health has been suffering correspondingly.

Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson proposed a framework of psychosocial development way back in the 1950s and 60s which is still seen as highly instructive. Through the school years, successful navigation of these stages involves the child developing a sense of autonomy, initiative and industry. The child must gradually take charge of his or her life by trying things out, learning from mistakes, discovering new skills, making a tangible impact on their expanding world – becoming competent.

Contrast that vision with the fact that young men are now much more likely to be ‘NEET’s (‘Not in Education, Employment, or Training’) than women. It’s hard not to make the connection that as boys retreat into the virtual world they are missing the opportunities to develop agency and become competent men. To take one example, phones provide boys with constant easy access to hardcore pornography. They can retreat into the virtual world to satisfy the powerful evolutionary desires of sex without having to develop the risky real-world relationship skills that used to be part of helping them transition to manhood.

So, what can be done? The solutions are necessarily as complex as the causes, and yet there are a range of simple measures which are already being implemented.

For schools these measures centre around different levels of phone ban. For example, in Western Australia, for children up to the age of 11, children may not have a phone in their possession at school. That applies from the start to the end of the school day (so includes break times). Older students may have a phone on them, but it must be switched off and ‘stored securely’ during the day, with each school finding its own way of enforcing this.

This inclusion of the phone ban at breaktimes (or not) is currently a key differential, as most countries are agreed on the idea that phones should not be visible during lessons. Currently, the UK government is leaving decisions like these up to schools.

For parents there are also a lot of immediate wins:

• Keep on top of parental controls and content filters
• Model moderate phone use
• Create face-to-face interactions where both parties are giving each other their undivided attention
• Normalise relying on children at home to help out, giving them a sense of responsibility and maturity
• Encourage unsupervised phoneless sleepovers and walks with other children

According to Jonathan Haidt, it’s not just about reducing phone use. Another key element to this is the considered ‘letting go’ of the constant supervision of children. Well intentioned parents are often driven to take children to a steady stream of supervised classes and activities. While these clearly have their place, parents need to build in periods of unsupervised physical play or activity with other children in their community.

Ultimately, we need to re-think our relationship with safety and with risk. We all want to keep our children safe, but we sometimes forget that in order to do that we have to let them take some risks.

If you’re looking to better understand and measure pupils’ device usage and online activities, we offer a range of specialist surveys to help you gather crucial insights. These tools can uncover patterns, highlight areas of concern, and provide actionable data that is often challenging to collect. Our surveys are tailored to support schools in making informed decisions and promoting healthier digital habits. Explore our surveys here.

Further reading:

Haidt, J., 2024. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin.

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