Smartphones At Age 12 Linked To Worse Health
- Reference: 0180254483
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/12/02/008223/smartphones-at-age-12-linked-to-worse-health
- Source link:
> Kids who owned a smartphone at age 12 were found to have about 31% higher odds of depression, 40% higher odds of obesity and 62% higher odds of insufficient sleep than their peers who didn't have one. The researchers analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health-supported Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study assessments conducted between 2016 and 2022. The study included responses from 10,588 youths. Kids who had smartphones were more likely to be female, Black or Hispanic, and from lower-income households.
The study has been [2]published in the journal Pediatrics .
[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/12/01/smartphones-age-12-worse-health-study
[2] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/doi/10.1542/peds.2025-072941/205716/Smartphone-Ownership-Age-of-Smartphone-Acquisition
And before the 21st century, since 1950s... (Score:2)
kids who sat on their ass in front of the tv too long had worse health including significantly higher odds of depression, obesity, and poor sleep.
In 1990s joined by kids who sat on their ass with their home computer or game console
Correlation still isn't causation (Score:3, Informative)
It's entirely possible even likely that what we are seeing here is just that latchkey kids are more likely to have smartphones at an early age.
The problem isn't the phone itself it's overworked parents with low pay and no social support.
The abstract at least says that the account for socioeconomic factors but I'm not able to read the actual study past the abstract.
Also I guarantee that these exact same studies can be found for television, the internet and if you go back far enough you can find the 18th century equivalent of these studies for Penny dreadfuls.
Every time a new form of mass media or a new device for mass media shows up you can bet somebody is going to find a correlation between everything bad and if. Meanwhile we never actually do anything about things like child hunger or forcing kids to get up early to go to school when we have plenty of studies indicating the teenagers need more sleep and it needs to be later in the morning...
Re: (Score:3)
I mostly agree with you, except for your complaint about low pay and no social support. That point is specifically controlled for in the study, which you acknowledged, but then stated your opposite opinion anyway. That's unfortunate, because I know how desperately you want people to go along with your capitalism-is-evil mantra.
Re: (Score:2)
So I'm aware that the abstract says that they controlled for socioeconomic factors I'm just dubious of that.
It's far more likely that kids spending a bunch of time on screens is a symptom of other problems.
That said on the off chance that the phones are a problem they are a miniscule problem compared to everything else kids are up against in 2025.
Taking your kid's phone away isn't going to magically make them get better grades or take up sports.
Even so I think it's far more likely that you're
Re: Correlation still isn't causation (Score:2)
See the work of Jonathan Haidt. He ruled out latchkey and other alternative methods explantations ; it is the phones pure and simple.
Re: Correlation still isn't causation (Score:1)
How come I was a significantly more depressed kid than my peers before phones were ensmartened?
Re: Correlation still isn't causation (Score:1)
i notice your posts always follows his and have poorly worded run-on English sentences. It's as if a N. Korean were using machine translation, badly. Why don't you go out back and dig up a kimchi pot, and chill out with a meal, Kang-Dae?
Re: (Score:2)
You're not helping your case by quoting a quack like him. He's a pop sci author that specializes in junk science. Exactly the kind of guy that I would expect to do a lazy study pointing to cell phones bad.
Like I mentioned on other comments I'm still not at all convinced and correlation is not causation.
I keep coming back to the fact that these same studies have been done with every new form of media and they always find a correlation.
The problem isn't the New Media the problem is we don't suppor
poor lifestyle or bad choices? (Score:2)
> ... Black or Hispanic, and from lower-income ...
The study found that disadvantaged groups have worse health outcomes: Why am I not surprised?
The study concludes that phone usage causes worse outcomes: It is possible that worse outcomes happened before the phone usage. Since these are disadvantaged groups, that is essentially guaranteed.
The damage caused by many hours of sedentary behaviour, have been known for decades: This outcome is expected. In addition, multiple studies seem to identify young females as having worse outcomes. In practice, i
Re: (Score:2)
Except that the study says they controlled for that. So within those individual demographics, some 12 year olds had smartphones and some didn't, and the ones that did have them had worse outcomes. You're trying pretty hard to not accept the results.
Re: poor lifestyle or bad choices? (Score:1)
What if suicided 12-year-olds weren't counted and they disproportionately didn't use smartphones?
Re: (Score:2)
> "In practice, it is seen more as an unwanted evil, like car crashes, than as bad choices that needs the attention of family members or mental health professionals."
What it needs to be is children not having unsupervised access to devices that have unrestricted internet access. Social media is certainly detrimental, but there are millions of other "dangerous to children" sites/apps, not to mention texting or media'ing to/from strangers. Children cannot comprehend or deal with the crap they read/see/hea
Re: poor lifestyle or bad choices? (Score:1)
What if kids with smartphones get depressed because they see society as it really is, not the lie you're trying to push on them?
Re: (Score:1)
You're trying to frame this as a bad thing but the truth is that protecting children under a certain age from the brutal horrors of reality is as vital to their healthy emotional development as protecting them from physical danger is vital to their physical growth.
Re: poor lifestyle or bad choices? (Score:1)
"Society" isn't a monolith. Choosing to dwell on the bad to the exclusion of good is just that, a choice.
Plenty of clear-eyed, clear-headed yet well-adjusted individuals have survived and found some measure of happiness, if not prosperity, under Communism, serfdom, and everything before and since. "The injustice of it all" is demonstrably *not* too much for people who are capable of compartmentalizing.
Well no kidding (Score:1)
Handing a child a machine that vends entertainment, porn, social media etc, and seeks every ounce of their attention surely will be fine, right?
Re: Well no kidding (Score:1)
Yeah. Better lock it down so it only allows posting on slashdot.
Junk Science (Score:2)
From the study:
> "Kids who had smartphones were more likely to be female, Black or Hispanic, and from lower-income households."
Which I suppose means that the population of kids who don't own smart phones includes more kids who are male, white and from middle and upper incomes. In other words they are comparing the composition of two distinctly different populations.
This is pure junk science. And if someone used those two populations without mentioning smartphones, I doubt anyone would be surprised by that there were more kids with problems in the population that had more female, black and hispanic, and low income k
And water is wet :o (Score:2)
And water is wet - DOH!
Ya don't say? (Score:1, Troll)
Gee thanks CAPTAIN OBVIOUS! At least in the states, kids under 16 shouldn't be allowed to have anything but a dumb phone that can only call say 911 and, their parents. We see it all the time, young teenagers all sitting around NOT talking to each other but with their heads down in their phones.
Re: Ya don't say? (Score:1)
Are you a grumpy old person?