The average 18-year old is currently on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time in their life looking at a screen.
Assuming a lifespan of 90 years and accounting for activities like work, eating, sleep, and other essential tasks, an 18 year old has about 27.8 years of free time remaining—26 of those years will be spent staring at a device.
Source: Dscout
The average person touches their phone 2,600 times a day.
Source: Facebook internal data
Americans scroll through 300 feet of mobile content daily —the same height as the Statue of Liberty.
3 months after starting to use a smartphone, users experience a significant decrease in mental arithmetic scores (indicating a reduction in their attentional capacity).
In addition, brain scans show that heavy users have significantly reduced neural activity in their right prefrontal cortex, which is linked with serious behavioral abnormalities such as impulsivity and poor attention.
Hadar, A., Hadas, I., Lazarovits, A., Alyagon, U., Eliraz, D., & Zargen, A., 2017. PLoS One ↗
The level of social media use on a given day is linked to a significant correlated increase in memory failure the next day.
Sharifian, N., & Zahodne, L. B., 2019. Journal of Gerontology: Series B ↗
A meta-analysis of several dozen research studies indicates that higher levels of switching between different media channels is significantly linked to lower levels of both working memory and long-term memory.
Uncapher and Wagner, 2018. Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences ↗
In a longitudinal study tracking over 200 children from the age of 2 years to 5 years old, children with higher levels of screen time showed greater delays in development across a range of important measures, including language, problem-solving, and social interaction. Analyses indicated that the level of screen time was significantly linked to the specific level of developmental delay 12 -14 months later. This is a critical period in a child's life: as the researchers note, the current data indicates that exposure to excessive screen time during these early years can have serious effects "impinging on children's ability to develop optimally".
Madigan, S., Browne, D. T., Racine, N., & Mori, C., 2019. JAMA Pediatrics ↗
Preschoolers who use screen-based media for more than 1 hour each day have been shown to have significantly less development in core brain regions involved in language and literacy. Brain scans indicate that the more time spent on screens, the lower the child's language skills, and the less structural integrity in key brain areas responsible for language. This is one of the first studies to assess the structural neurobiological impacts of screen-based media use in preschoolers; it raises serious questions as to how screen use may affect the basic development of young children's brains.
Hutton, J. S., Dudley, J., & Horowitz-Kraus, T., 2019. JAMA Pediatrics ↗
Media multi-tasking is significantly linked to later levels of attentional difficulties. Tracking more than 800 adolescents across time demonstrated that the degree to which young teens (aged 11-13 years old) multi-tasked was a significant predictor of attentional problems 3 months later (p < 0.05), highlighting the potential impact of distracting digital environments on young teens' development.
A systematic review and meta-analysis (of 20 studies) showed strong, consistent evidence of an association between bedtime access to or use of electronic devices and reduced sleep quantity and quality, as well as increased daytime sleepiness.
Carter, B., Rees, P., & Hale, L., 2016. JAMA Pediatrics ↗
The level of electronic media use before bedtime is significantly correlated with depression in adolescence. Measurements from several hundred teenagers indicate that this is primarily due to the impact on sleep: compared to video game players, teens with high levels of social media use experienced greater sleep difficulties, which in turn strongly correlated with higher levels of depression.
The mere presence of your smartphone, even when it is turned off and face down, drains your attention. An experimental study of several hundred adults showed that both working memory and the ability to solve new problems were drastically reduced when their phones were turned off but present on their desks, as opposed to being in another room. Ironically, participants who said they were highly dependent on their phones showed the greatest increase in memory and fluid intelligence scores when their phones were moved to the other room. Researchers noted that smartphones act as "high-priority stimuli," unconsciously draining significant attentional resources even when we consciously ignore them.
The mere presence of a mobile phone can disrupt the connection between two people, leading to reduced feelings of empathy, trust, and a sense of closeness. In a series of studies, researchers found that when pairs of strangers were asked to have meaningful conversations, their ability to connect emotionally was significantly reduced if a mobile phone was visible.
Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N., 2013. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships ↗