September 27, 2023 – Some kids pick up their smartphones just a couple of times a day, while others check their notifications as much as 498 times in 24 hours. Usage ranges from a couple of minutes to 16 hours a day, in keeping with a brand new study based on data collected with permission.
The hottest uses throughout the school day were social media, YouTube and gaming. Many said TikTok was irresistible. A 11th The grader described it as ideal if you might have 10 free minutes.
“You don't really have to go in, like YouTube, you have to go in, you have to search for something, you have to find a video that you want to see,” said the 11th the grader said, in keeping with the report. “And on TikTok, it's just there. You can basically open it whenever you want. And even in a short period of time, you can still watch at least two or three videos.”
The report was published by Common Sense and CS Mott Children's Hospital on the University of Michigan Medicine. Common Sense is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating technology and entertainment guides for families and schools.
Some teens said they wish to be proactive in using the Do Not Disturb feature and actively control how their phone affects their day. Common Sense estimates that 43% of tweens ages 8 to 12 own a smartphone, and as much as 95% of teens ages 13 to 18 have one.
The study involved 203 U.S. children ages 11 to 17 who agreed to have their smartphone activity tracked by an app for per week. Participants were all Android smartphone users, as Apple phones don't share data with researchers in the identical way that Android phones do. Questions researchers desired to answer included how often children receive notifications, how much they use their phones during school and at night, and the way much tension or frustration they feel about their smartphones and the way they take care of it.
The study found the next:
- On a typical day, teenagers receive 237 notifications, and about 25% of them come during school hours and 5% at night.
- The average duration of telephone use during school hours is 43 minutes.
- School phone policies vary widely from school to high school and classroom to classroom and aren’t all the time enforced.
- Teens use their phones to chill out before going to sleep. Sometimes they take heed to music while they sleep, but sometimes they fall asleep later because they spend time on their phones after a busy day.
“The good news is that many young people report that they have become smarter about their phone's attempts to lure them in and are taking steps to protect their digital well-being, such as setting time limits and prioritizing certain types of notifications,” wrote Common Sense founder and CEO James P. Steyer, JD, who’s a civil rights attorney. “But the business model of these apps and devices depends on young people picking up their phones and engaging with them as much as possible, and it's clear that teens are struggling to set boundaries.”
The report's authors suggest that you just undergo the notification settings on your personal and your child's phone along with your child and discuss which apps send essentially the most and the way you may adjust the settings to avoid additional disruption. Talk about how you may adjust the settings to fit your child's needs.
The authors also suggested that “pausing and reflecting on how the phone is trying to grab the user's attention can lead to great family and classroom discussions and can help users feel in control of their smartphone use.”