{"id":4758,"date":"2019-06-29T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4758"},"modified":"2019-06-16T19:23:53","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T00:23:53","slug":"does-smartphone-addiction-boost-anxiety-and-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/does-smartphone-addiction-boost-anxiety-and-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Smartphone Addiction Boost Anxiety and Depression?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We frequently hear about the dangers of “smartphone addiction.” If you search those words in Google, you’ll find this juicy quotation in the second link<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The brain on \u201csmartphone\u201d is the same as the brain on cocaine: we get an\u00a0instant high<\/span>\u00a0every time our screen lights up with a new notification.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“An instant high.” Like cocaine<\/em>? Hmmmm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You might even have heard that we’ve got research about the perils of such addictions. But: can we rely on it?<\/p>\n

A recent study asked a simple question, and got an alarming answer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How Do We Know What We Know About Phone Usage?<\/h2>\n

Studies about smartphones typically ask participants to rate their cell phone usage — number of minutes, number of texts, and so forth. They then correlate those data with some other harmful condition: perhaps depression.<\/p>\n

Researchers in Britain wanted to know:\u00a0how accurately<\/strong> do people rate their cellphone usage?<\/em><\/p>\n

When they looked at Apple’s “Screen Time” application, they found that participants simply don’t do a good job of reporting their own usage.<\/p>\n

In other words: depression might correlate with people’s\u00a0reported<\/em> screen time. But it doesn’t necessarily correlate with (and certainly doesn’t result from) their\u00a0actual\u00a0<\/em>screen time.<\/p>\n

In the modest language of research:<\/p>\n

We conclude that existing self-report instruments are unlikely to be sensitive enough to accurately predict basic technology use related behaviors. As a result, conclusions regarding the psychological impact of technology are unreliable when relying solely on these measures to quantify typical usage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So much for that “instant high.” Like cocaine.<\/p>\n

What Should Teachers Do<\/h2>\n

As I’ve written before<\/a>, I think research into technology use is often too muddled and contradictory to give us good guidance right now.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I wrote back in May:<\/p>\n

For the time being, to preserve sanity, I\u2019d keep these main points in mind:<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: don\u2019t panic. The media LOVE to hype stories about this and that terrible result of technology. Most research I see doesn\u2019t bear that out.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>: don\u2019t focus on\u00a0averages<\/em>. Focuses on the\u00a0child<\/em>, or the\u00a0children<\/em>, in front of you.<\/p>\n

Is your teen not getting enough sleep? Try fixing that problem by limiting screen time. If she is getting enough sleep, no need to worry!<\/p>\n

Is your student body managing their iPhones well? If yes, it\u2019s all good! If no, then you can develop a policy to make things better.<\/p>\n

Until we get clearer and more consistent research findings, I think we should respond \u2014 calmly \u2014 to the children right in front of us.<\/p>\n

I still think that advice holds. If your child’s attachment to the cellphone seems unhealthy, then do something about it.<\/p>\n

But if not, we shouldn’t let scary headlines drive us to extremes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite all the scary headlines, research on cell-phone usage relies on self-report. And: people are very bad at remembering how much they actually use their phones. We simply don’t yet know much from research about their effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,29],"class_list":["post-4758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-methodology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4764,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions\/4764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}