Teens: Addicted to Phones (and Exhausted by Notifications)

If you have found yourself worn out by notifications on your smartphone, you should see what it is like for U.S. teenagers. A new report published* this week reveals that many adolescents have a symbiotic relationship with their telephones:

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♦ Adolescents get as many as 237 or more notifications on their phones each and every day.

♦ Approximately 25% of phone notifications come in during school hours.

♦ Most teens use their phone at least once for 43 minutes on average during school hours.

♦ Some teens use their phones for more than six hours during school hours.

♦ Teens’ smartphones are their “constant companion that encourages regular pickups,” amounting to checking their phones more than 100 times daily on average.

♦ Many teenagers report they feel they cannot put their phones down.

♦ Most adolescents in the study look to their phones to alleviate negative emotions.

♦ Teens in the study used TikTok between two and seven hours every day.

♦ Teens’ phone notifications are not just from friends, social media, sports or celebrity gossip, but also about school shootings and other tragic events.

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Common Sense Media Report | source

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*The report’s findings are based on the Android smartphone use of two hundred 11- to 17-year-olds who let their data be collected via software, and on feedback about the data from Common Sense Media’s Youth Advisory Council, which is comprised of young people who help interpret data to understand the relationships young people have with their phones.

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