Study warns excessive smartphone use could be harmful for teens

By Isobel Williams via SWNS

Teenagers who use smartphones for more than four hours a day put their health at "serious" risk, warns a new study.

Researchers found that increased smartphone usage can cause health issues such as psychiatric disorders, sleep issues, eye-related problems, and musculoskeletal disorders.

This new study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that adolescents who used a smartphone for more than four hours per day had higher rates of stress, thoughts of suicide and substance use than those who used them less.

They were also shown to have a significantly higher rate of obesity than those with usage below four hours.

Professor Jong Ho Cha from Hanyang University Medical Center, Korea, said: “Smartphones have become essential platforms in the lives of young people.

“Adolescents’ daily lives are connected to smartphones for various purposes, and this trend has been accelerated by school closures and social distancing due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“As smartphone usage time increases, growing evidence suggests that the smartphone is related to many adverse health effects among adolescents.”

However, growing evidence suggests that at least some daily internet usage may be associated with better physical and mental health for adolescents.

Adolescents who used a smartphone between one and two hours per day encountered fewer problems than adolescents who did not use a smartphone at all.

The researchers also believe that the relationship between phone usage and health risks could be working in reverse.

Cha added: “Excessive smartphone usage was related to adverse behavioral health outcomes, which were overt when the usage time exceeded four hours a day.

“This relationship could also be in the opposite direction, as previous studies have shown that adolescents with emotional regulation difficulties may be more prone to excessive smartphone use.”

To get their results the team studied data from more than 50,000 Korean adolescents collected in an online survey.

They found that in 2020 85.7 percent of adolescents used their phones for more than two hours a day, a huge increase from the 64.3 percent recorded in 2017.

Cha concluded: “Our findings can help establish smartphone usage guidelines for adolescents.”