The Atlantic: Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?

Despite the somewhat click-baity headline, this Atlantic article posing the question Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation? is a good read. As a non-parent, I often wonder about the decision making process that goes into "screen time" with extremely young adults and with teens. Given how much smart devices penetrate our lives, how does one decide what is too much? Particularly when the distinct activities are hidden from view.

It's not a question I can answer but the article does a scary job of laying out the harms of the smartphone and too much screen time. Is this the standard reaction of one generation looking back at the younger and declaring it's unhealthiness? Probably a bit of that but there's plenty of data and survey's that come along with the article that make it hard to argue that's the only thing that's happening. It's hard to pick out a single factoid from the article that summarizes that fear completely but this one was certainly impactful:

Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. (That's much more than the risk related to, say, watching TV.) One piece of data that indirectly but stunningly captures kids' growing isolation, for good and for bad: Since 2007, the homicide rate among teens has declined, but the suicide rate has increased. As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves. In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.

That is a sad and scary statistic if ever there was one.

I don't think anything in the article is meant to be instructive, nor do I think it claims to be too specific - these are broad numbers from surveys (not exactly the most trustworthy source of information). But, regardless, it's a topic worth considering given all the numbers. Personally, I don't think this stops at Teens or Youth, I think much of this could be applied to a much wider net. Something for us all to consider (and I'm not a Luddite, I just like to be cautious and aware).