excessive use of mobile phones essay

Essay on Good and Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

Students are often asked to write an essay on Good and Bad Effects of Mobile Phones in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Good and Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

Introduction.

Mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives. They offer numerous benefits but also have some negative impacts.

Good Effects of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones improve communication. They allow us to stay connected with our family and friends. They also provide access to a wealth of information and educational resources.

Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

However, excessive use of mobile phones can lead to health issues like eye strain and sleep disturbances. It can also cause addiction, reducing physical activity and face-to-face social interaction.

In conclusion, while mobile phones have their advantages, their misuse can lead to several problems. It’s important to use them responsibly.

250 Words Essay on Good and Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones, an indispensable part of our lives, have transformed the way we communicate, access, and share information. However, they come with their set of pros and cons which significantly impact our lives.

Positive Impacts of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones have revolutionized communication, making it instantaneous and borderless. They facilitate social connectivity, enabling us to maintain relationships across distances. Besides, they have become a one-stop solution for various needs, from online shopping and banking to learning and entertainment.

Moreover, smartphones have paved the way for a plethora of applications, including those for health and fitness, mental well-being, and productivity enhancement. They have democratized access to information, empowering individuals to make informed decisions and contribute to societal progress.

Negative Impacts of Mobile Phones

Despite their benefits, mobile phones have a downside. Over-reliance on these devices has led to addictive behaviors, impacting physical and mental health. Excessive screen time can lead to eye strain, sleep disorders, and sedentary lifestyle-related problems.

Furthermore, the constant barrage of notifications can cause anxiety and stress, leading to decreased productivity. Mobile phones also raise privacy concerns, as they can be used for unauthorized data collection and surveillance. Cyberbullying and online harassment have become prevalent with the ubiquity of smartphones, posing serious threats to mental health and safety.

In conclusion, while mobile phones have made life more convenient and connected, they have also introduced new challenges. It is essential to use these devices judiciously, balancing their benefits with potential hazards to ensure a healthy and productive life.

500 Words Essay on Good and Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones, once a luxury, have become a necessity in the modern world. These devices have revolutionized communication, enabling us to connect with others swiftly and efficiently. However, their pervasive influence has sparked a debate about the good and bad effects they have on our lives.

The Good Effects of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones have undoubtedly brought about numerous positive impacts. Firstly, they have transformed communication. We can now connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time, breaking down geographical barriers and fostering global connectivity. This has made it easier for businesses to operate internationally, for families to stay in touch, and for emergencies to be reported instantly.

Secondly, mobile phones have become a hub for information and entertainment. With the advent of smartphones, we now have a world of knowledge at our fingertips. From online education to news updates, from music streaming to movie watching, our phones serve as portals to limitless information and entertainment.

Thirdly, mobile phones have facilitated convenience in our daily lives. They serve as calendars, alarm clocks, and personal assistants. They allow us to shop online, manage our finances, track our health, and even navigate unfamiliar locations. The convenience offered by mobile phones is unparalleled.

The Bad Effects of Mobile Phones

Despite these benefits, mobile phones also have their drawbacks. One of the most significant is their contribution to decreased physical interaction. As people become more engrossed in their virtual worlds, face-to-face communication is being replaced by digital interaction, leading to a decline in essential social skills.

Moreover, excessive use of mobile phones has been linked to various health issues. These range from physical problems like poor posture and eye strain to psychological problems such as addiction, anxiety, and depression. The blue light emitted by phone screens can disrupt sleep patterns, leading to insomnia and other sleep disorders.

Furthermore, the ubiquity of mobile phones has raised serious concerns about privacy and security. Personal information can be easily accessed and misused, leading to potential identity theft and cybercrime. The constant connectivity also means that we are always reachable, blurring the boundaries between work and personal life and leading to increased stress levels.

In conclusion, while mobile phones have undoubtedly made our lives easier and more connected, they also pose significant challenges. It is crucial to strike a balance between leveraging the benefits of these devices and mitigating their adverse effects. By using mobile phones mindfully and responsibly, we can harness their power for good while minimizing their potential harm.

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Uses of Mobile Phones Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on uses of mobile phones.

Mobile phones are one of the most commonly used gadgets in today’s world. Everyone from a child to an adult uses mobile phones these days. They are indeed very useful and help us in so many ways.

Mobile phones indeed make our lives easy and convenient but at what cost? They are a blessing only till we use it correctly. As when we use them for more than a fixed time, they become harmful for us.

Uses of Mobile Phone

We use mobile phones for almost everything now. Gone are the days when we used them for only calling. Now, our lives revolve around it. They come in use for communicating through voice, messages, and mails. We can also surf the internet using a phone. Most importantly, we also click photos and record videos through our mobile’s camera.

The phones of this age are known as smartphones . They are no less than a computer and sometimes even more. You can video call people using this phone, and also manage your official documents. You get the chance to use social media and play music through it.

Moreover, we see how mobile phones have replaced computers and laptops . We carry out all the tasks through mobile phones which we initially did use our computers. We can even make powerpoint presentations on our phones and use it as a calculator to ease our work.

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Disadvantages of Mobile Phones

While mobile phones are very beneficial, they also come to a lot of disadvantages. Firstly, they create a distance between people. As people spend time on their phones, they don’t talk to each other much. People will sit in the same room and be busy on their phones instead of talking to each other.

Subsequently, phones waste a lot of time. People get distracted by them easily and spend hours on their phones. They are becoming dumber while using smartphones . They do not do their work and focus on using phones.

Most importantly, mobile phones are a cause of many ailments. When we use phones for a long time, our eyesight gets weaker. They cause strain on our brains. We also suffer from headaches, watery eyes, sleeplessness and more.

Moreover, mobile phones have created a lack of privacy in people’s lives. As all your information is stored on your phone and social media , anyone can access it easily. We become vulnerable to hackers. Also, mobile phones consume a lot of money. They are anyway expensive and to top it, we buy expensive gadgets to enhance our user experience.

In short, we see how it is both a bane and a boon. It depends on us how we can use it to our advantage. We must limit our usage of mobile phones and not let it control us. As mobile phones are taking over our lives, we must know when to draw the line. After all, we are the owners and not the smartphone.

FAQs on Uses of Mobile Phones

Q.1 How do mobile phones help us?

A.1 Mobile phones are very advantageous. They help us in making our lives easy and convenient. They help us communicate with our loved ones and carry out our work efficiently. Furthermore, they also do the work of the computer, calculator, and cameras.

Q.2 What is the abuse of mobile phone use?

A.2 People are nowadays not using but abusing mobile phones. They are using them endlessly which is ruining their lives. They are the cause of many ailments. They distract us and keep us away from important work. Moreover, they also compromise with our privacy making us vulnerable to hackers.

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Increase in the Use of Mobile Phones and it’s Effects on Young People Report (Assessment)

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Introduction

Mobile phones are increasingly becoming an integral constituent of society with young people, in particular, embracing the technology that has come to be associated with a multiplicity of positive and negative consequences (Suss & Waller 2011).

Emerging trends from the developed world demonstrate that the youth have the highest levels of mobile phone ownership across all age-groups and are prolific consumers of the technology (Walsh et al 2008), and the situation is marginally different in most developing countries where markets for mobile phones have been phenomenal (Thomee et al 2011).

Responsible use of these devices has been associated with desirable outcomes, such as increased feeling of belonging, better social identification and a stronger perception of security, but addictive use is often associated with undesirable outcomes which borders on stress, peer pressure, dilution of the social fabric or mobile phone dependence (Suss & Waller 2011).

For instance, younger drivers engage more on the use of mobile phone while driving, particularly to send and receive text messages, thereby endangering their lives, and mobile phone debt, occasionally leading to bankruptcy, is increasingly becoming a big challenge for many young users globally (Walsh et al, 2008).

It is indeed true that the youth form a significant component of the general population even though it is challenging to delineate this particular group, primarily because of the fact that the phase of life between childhood and adulthood differs across geographical and sociocultural contexts, not mentioning that an individual’s maturity may not necessarily correspond the number of years lived (Campbell, 2005).

Yet, it is this group of the population that is most at risk due to usage patterns coupled with an insatiable appetite to discover more about the world, of course through the use of mobile phones and other handheld devices. An emerging strand of literature (e.g., Walker et al, 2011; Thomee et al, 2011) reports of ‘addictive’ forms of mobile use, especially among the young people, in ways that have the capacity not only to destroy relationships and careers but also weaken the social fabric that holds society together.

The purpose of the present paper is to critically evaluate the effects, both positive and negative, of increased use of mobile phones on young people, and how these effects can be mitigated to avoid negative ramifications. The paper also seeks to explain the physical and physiological effects of excessive use of mobile phones on young people. Finally, the report seeks to illuminate some important insights into the social effects of mobile phones on young people.

Challenges and Effects of Excessive Use of Mobile Phones on Young People

Mobile phones are hand-held portable devices that use analogue or digital frameworks to receive frequencies transmitted by cellular towers or base stations to connect to connect calls and other services between two gadgets (Thomee et al 2011).

The gadgets have the capacity, not only to make and receive calls but also to access other services, such as text messaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), email alerts, web access, Bluetooth and infrared compatibility and functionality, business software applications, games and photo editing (Khan 2008).

Academics and industry are of the opinion that these additional services provided by mobile telephones form fertile grounds for excessive use and misuse of the gadgets, particularly by the young people (Walker et al, 2011). For instance, smart phones, which are the ‘in-thing’ for many young people across the world, offer the real possibility of accessing all these capabilities just by a single touch of the screen, thereby providing an easy channel through which young people continually engage in overuse and misuse of these services.

While some young people use the internet-enabled mobile phones to access pornographic sites containing sexually explicit materials (Abbasi & Manawar, 2011), others use the webcams installed on their phones to capture sexual images and forward them to their friends through cyberspace (Thomee et al, 2011).

According to Walker et al (2011), “…these images then become part of a young person’s digital footprint, which may last forever and damage future career prospects and relationships” (p. 9). As noted elsewhere, pornographic sites may provide the impetus for young people to start engaging in premarital or irresponsible sex (OECD/ECMT Transport Research Centre 2006).

Physical, Psychological and Physiological Effects of Excessive Use of Mobile Phones

Mobile phone dependence has been cited in the literature as contributing to negative physical and physiological ramifications on young people (Thomee et al 2011). These authors note that there exist positive correlations between mobile phone dependence on the one hand, and stress, sleeps disturbances, and enhanced symptoms of depression on the other.

Still, another study reported in Abbasi & Manawar (2011) demonstrates a positive correlation between excessive mobile phone use and undesirable psychological and physiological behavior outcomes, such as agitation, dependence on stimulants, irresponsible lifestyle, difficulty in sleeping, sleep disruption, and stress vulnerability.

Young people are more likely than old people to feel the pressure arising from these undesirable outcomes, not only because of their weak conflict-resolution mechanisms but also because their brains are not developed fully to maturity (Walker et al 2011; Walsh et al 2011), leading to the engagement of other equally risky behaviors, such as smoking, sniffing and alcohol abuse (Thomee et al 2011).

Available literature demonstrates that browsing of phonographic material via internet-enabled hand-held devices has negative psychological ramifications on young people, particularly in terms of seeking for immediate sexual gratification and blurred thought system (Walker et al 2011; Abbasi & Manawar 2011). These predispositions, according to the authors, may eventually lead to sexual disorders, stress, sexual dysfunction and risk of facing criminal charges due to engaging in prohibited content.

There is an emerging concern about the potential hazards that electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phones pose to the health and wellbeing of users, particularly in the development of cancerous brain tumors (Khan 2008). One particular study reported by the National Cancer Institute (2011) found that people who engage in dependent mobile phone use before celebrating their 20 th birthday have more than 50 percent risk of suffering from cancer of the glial cells than those who didn’t engage in the behavior.

Additionally, as reported in this document, individuals who become over dependent on mobile phone use while still in their formative years of life have over 50 percent risk of developing benign, but often immobilizing, lumps of the auditory nerve (acoustic neuroma) than those who didn’t engage in the habit.

Social effects

On the positive front, mobiles phones have been credited for assisting young people to socialize with their peers and establish virtual relationships which are oiled by the ease and availability of the communication process (Walsh et al 2010). Young people are now more than ever before able to organize and maintain a social network, and to interact effectively with their peers (Campbell 2005).

In addition, young people can now benefit from the immense knowledge and information that could be readily accessed through their internet-enabled phones (Khan 2008). Lastly, parents are able to keep track of their children (Ong 2010).

However, these benefits are often blurred by the many negative effects associated with excessive mobile phone use, such as cyber bullying and deterioration of face-to-face interpersonal relationships (Campbell 2005; Abbasi & Manawar 2011; Khan 2008).

Research demonstrates that compared to physical interpersonal socialization, cyber bullying is a more injurious orientation as it can distract an individual from facing the real social issues – both physically and psychologically (Thomee et al 2011). Additionally, excessive use of mobile phones leads to social alienation, where young people spend a lot of time talking to absent friends while ignoring those people around them (Ong 2010).

The issue of etiquette in mobile phone use is also been overlooked by many young people, leading to scenarios where users may either create distractions to other people in the communication process, or where mobile phone usage becomes an environmental risk (Khan 2008). For instance, young people are known to create distractions in banking halls, educational settings and even in home meetings by making and receiving calls in surroundings that do not warrant such use (Thomee et al 2011).

Finally, according to Kamran (2010), “…one of the major negative consequences of addictive mobile use is financial cost or really expensive mobile phone bills” (p. 27). The heavy financial burden may lead the youth to engage in petty crimes, such as stealing money from their parents to buy credit so that they can communicate with their peers.

Not only is it evident that mobile phone use has both desirable and undesirable outcomes on young people, but it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that this group of the population has an orientation to over depend on the gadgets.

To mitigate these effects, therefore, it is imperative for relevant stakeholders, including the youth, parents, mobile phone service providers and governments, to devise strategies of ensuring responsible and controlled use of the devices, particularly by young people. Such strategies are ostensibly instrumental in limiting the serious health, psychological, physiological and social challenges posed by excessive use of these gadgets.

As suggested in a report by the Center on Media and Child Health (2010), the negative effects associated with excessive mobile phone use, particularly among the youth, are bound to increase in the future. Consequently, parents and other interested stakeholders need to create awareness about the need to limit mobile phone use due to the consequences associated with excessive use of these devices (Khan 2008).

Young people also need to be educated on the responsible use of mobile phones. Lastly, school administrators need to be empowered not only to effectively monitor the use of these gadgets but also to pass critical information about the inherent dangers posed by overuse (Center on Media and Child Health 2010).

Reference list

Abbasi S. & Manawar, M. 2011, ‘Multi-dimensional challenges facing digital youth and their consequences’, Cybersecurity Summit, London, June 2011 , Worldwide Group.

Campbell, M. 2005, ‘The impact of the mobile phone on young people’s social life’, in Social Change in the 21st Century , Queensland University of Technology, pp.1-14.

Center of Media and Child Health. 2010. Web.

Kamran, S. 2010, ‘Mobile phone: Calling and texting patterns of college students in Pakistan’, International Journal of Business and Management , vol. 5 no. 4, pp. 26-36.

Khan, M. M. 2008, ‘Adverse effects of excessive mobile phone use’, International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health , vol. 21 no. 4, pp. 289-293.

National Cancer Institute 2011, Cell phones and cancer risk . Web.

OECD/ECMT Transport Research Centre, European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations. Economic Commission for Europe 2006, Young drivers: the road to safety , OECD Publishing.

Ong, R. Y. C. 2010, Mobile communication and the protection of children , Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Thomee, S., Harenstam, A. & Hagberg, M. 2011, ‘Mobile phone use and stress, sleep disturbances, and symptoms of depression – a prospective cohort study’, BMC Public Health , vol. 11 no. 9, pp. 66-76.

Walkers, S., Sanci, L. & Temple-Smith, M. 2011, ‘Sexting and young people’, Youth Studies Australia , vol. 30 no. 4, pp. 8-16.

Walsh, S. P., White, K. M. & Young, R. M. 2010, ‘Needing to connect: the effect of self and others on young people’s involvement with their mobile phones’, Australian Journal of Psychology , vol. 62 no. 4, pp. 194-203.

ScienceDaily 2008, Weep News: Excessive mobile phone use affects sleep in teens, study finds . Web.

Suss, D. & Waller, G. 2011, Mobile telephone use by young people in Switzerland: The borders between committed use and addictive behavior . Web.

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Essay on Disadvantages and Advantages of Mobile Phones

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Mobile Phones have become an integral part of our day-to-day life. Teaching children to use their phones more thoughtfully can benefit them in both their personal and academic lives and help them become more effective citizens of society.

A mobile phone is a personal communication device that uses a wireless connection to do various functions such as sending and receiving messages, making and receiving calls, and accessing the internet. This article will help the readers to have an overview of the examples of different types of essays on the topic “Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Phones”.

Let’s dive right in.

Essay-on-Disadvantages-and-Advantages-of-Mobile-Phones

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Phone Essay 100 words

200 words essay on advantages and disadvantages of mobile phone, advantages and disadvantages of mobile phone essay 300 words, advantages of mobile phone, disadvantages of mobile phone, 10 lines essay on advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones.

There are advantages and disadvantages to mobile phones. First, let’s discuss the positive aspects. Our mobile phones facilitate easy communication with friends and family. With our phones, we may use the internet to discover new things as well. With their maps, they make it easy for us to locate our route, and we can even snap photos with them.

However, there are also some drawbacks. Overuse of phones by some individuals can be problematic. It might cause eye pain or even make it difficult to fall asleep. Furthermore, excessive phone use might cause us to lose focus when driving or walking, which is risky.

Thus, we must use our phones responsibly. It’s important to remember to take pauses and not use them excessively. Similar to consuming candy, moderation is key when it comes to this. Utilizing our phones sensibly may make them enjoyable and beneficial. However, we must exercise caution so as not to allow them to cause us issues.

With so many benefits, mobile phones have become an essential part of our life. They facilitate communication and let us stay in touch with loved ones no matter where we are or when we want. Additionally, mobile phones offer instant access to information, which keeps us up to date on global events. They are also useful for navigation, taking pictures to save memories, and even handling our money using mobile banking.

But there are also some disadvantages to these advantages. Overuse of a phone can become addictive, diverting our attention and decreasing our productivity. Extended periods of screen usage can lead to health problems like strained eyes and disturbed sleep cycles. Other drawbacks include privacy issues and the possibility of cyberbullying, which emphasise how crucial it is to use mobile phones properly.

In conclusion, even while mobile phones are incredibly beneficial for communication, information access, and convenience, it is important to consider the possible risks they may pose to one’s health, privacy, and general well-being. Maintaining a balance in the use of mobile phones is crucial to maximise their benefits while minimising their drawbacks.

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Mobile phones also referred to as cell phones, are now an essential component of our everyday existence. As with every technology, they have disadvantages in addition to their many advantages.

Earning Money: People can investigate flexible job choices by using mobile technology, which offers potential for generating revenue through a variety of channels, including freelance work, online markets, and gig economy applications .
Navigation: Cell phones with built-in GPS technology make travelling easier by making it simple for users to get directions, explore new areas, and successfully navigate uncharted territory.
Photography: The inclusion of high-quality cameras in mobile phones has made photography more accessible to a wider audience by encouraging innovation, enabling quick moment capture and sharing, and providing a platform for individual expression.
Safety: Cell phones help people stay safe because they give them a way to communicate in an emergency, ask for assistance, get in touch with authorities, and keep aware of their surroundings.
Health Problems: Extended usage of mobile phones is linked to possible long-term health hazards resulting from continuous exposure to radiofrequency radiation, as well as physical health problems such as soreness in the neck and back.
Cyber Bullying: Cell phones provide people with a platform to harass, threaten, or disseminate damaging information online, which puts the victims’ mental health in serious danger.
Road Accidents: Cell phone usage while driving increases the risk of distracted driving and traffic accidents, endangering the safety of both pedestrians and drivers.
Noise & Disturbance: M obile phone use may cause noise pollution in public areas, which can disrupt the peace and discomfort of others. This includes loud phone conversations, notification noises, and other mobile phone-related disruptions.
Easy Communication: Instantaneous and convenient communication is made possible by cell phones, which also develop real-time connections and bridge geographical distances, improving interpersonal relationships and job productivity.
Online Education: Since the development of mobile technology, more people have had access to educational materials than ever before, which enables them to pursue online courses, pick up new skills, and engage in lifelong learning at their own speed.
Social Connectivity: Through the use of various social media platforms, cell phones enable social engagement and networking, keeping individuals in touch with friends, family, and coworkers and promoting a feeling of community and shared experiences.
Banking & Transactions: The ease with which users may manage their accounts, transfer money, and complete transactions is made possible by mobile banking applications, which lessen the need for in-person bank visits and increase overall financial accessibility.
Promoting Buisness: Cell phones are effective instruments for marketing, communication, and company promotion. They let companies advertise to a wider audience, interact creatively with clients, and promote their goods and services.
Entertainment: Mobile phones have completely changed the entertainment sector by giving consumers access to a vast array of games, streaming services, and multimedia material that can be enjoyed while on the go.
Emergency Assistance: When it comes to emergency circumstances, cell phones are invaluable since they provide prompt access to emergency services, facilitate communication during emergencies, and serve as a lifeline for those in need of rapid aid.
Addiction & Distraction: Cell phone addiction may result from excessive use, which also makes people easily distracted, reduces productivity, and lessens in-person social contacts.
Sleeping Disorders: Due to the blue light that cell phones emit, prolonged use of them, especially right before bed, can interfere with sleep cycles, impair the generation of melatonin, and worsen insomnia and other sleeping problems.
Hearing issues: Long-term exposure to high decibel levels via headphones or phone conversations can cause hearing issues, such as loss or impairment of hearing, and pose a serious risk to the health of the auditory system.
Vision Problems: Digital eye strain, which can result in symptoms including dry eyes, headaches, and impaired vision, may be exacerbated by excessive cell phone screen usage. This condition may eventually cause long-term visual issues.
Privacy & Security Risks: Since personal data is vulnerable to hacking, unauthorised access, and abuse, there is a danger to both individuals and organisations while using mobile phones, which has led to worries about privacy breaches and security threats.
Wastage of Time: Using mobile phones excessively for unproductive purposes, including endlessly browsing social media or playing games, may lead to a major time waster that interferes with both personal and professional obligations.

The below are the 10 lines on advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones in English:

Mobile phones help us talk to friends and family easily.
They provide quick access to information through the internet.
Mobiles make it easy to find our way using maps and GPS.
We can capture memories with cameras on our phones.
Banking and managing money is convenient with mobile apps.
Mobiles offer entertainment with games and videos.
Using phones too much can be bad for our health.
It might disturb our sleep and hurt our eyes.
Too much phone use can be a distraction and affect our work.
Privacy can be at risk, and there might be issues like cyberbullying.

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FAQs on Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Phones Essay

What are the advantages of using mobile phones.

The advantages of using mobile phones are that they make our lives easier. They help us in easy communication, online education, banking and transactions, safety, emergency assistance etc.

What are the disadvantages of using mobile phones?

Some disadvantages of using mobile phones include addiction & distractions, sleeping disorders, hearing aids, noise & disturbance, wastage of time etc.

Why are mobile phones important?

Mobile phones are very important nowadays because they make an individual’s life more convenient and are the perfect way to stay connected with everyone.

How does using mobile phones affect an individual’s brain?

Research from the US National Institute of Health indicates that using a cell phone damages our brains. According to their findings, our brains utilise more sugar after every fifty minutes of phone usage. This is because sugar is an indicator of increased activity, which is detrimental for the brain.

What are the advantages of phone and disadvantages of phone?

Mobile phones offer communication and provide us the access to enormous information, but at the same time they can be addictive, cause distractions and invade our privacy.

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Home — Essay Samples — Information Science and Technology — Smartphone — Excessive Usage of Smartphones by Junior College Students

Excessive Usage of Smartphones by Junior College Students

Categories: College Smartphone Student

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Words: 466 |

Published: Apr 30, 2020

Words: 466 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: a systematic review

Open access
Published: 16 June 2022

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Braulio M. Girela-Serrano ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3813-2610 1 , 2 na1 ,
Alexander D. V. Spiers 3 , 4 na1 ,
Liu Ruotong 1 ,
Shivani Gangadia 1 ,
Mireille B. Toledano 3 , 4 , 5 &
Martina Di Simplicio 1

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Growing use of mobiles phones (MP) and other wireless devices (WD) has raised concerns about their possible effects on children and adolescents’ wellbeing. Understanding whether these technologies affect children and adolescents’ mental health in positive or detrimental ways has become more urgent following further increase in use since the COVID-19 outbreak. To review the empirical evidence on associations between use of MP/WD and mental health in children and adolescents. A systematic review of literature was carried out on Medline, Embase and PsycINFO for studies published prior to July 15th 2019, PROSPERO ID: CRD42019146750. 25 observational studies published between January 1st 2011 and 2019 were reviewed (ten were cohort studies, 15 were cross-sectional). Overall estimated participant mean age and proportion female were 14.6 years and 47%, respectively. Substantial between-study heterogeneity in design and measurement of MP/WD usage and mental health outcomes limited our ability to infer general conclusions. Observed effects differed depending on time and type of MP/WD usage. We found suggestive but limited evidence that greater use of MP/WD may be associated with poorer mental health in children and adolescents. Risk of bias was rated as ‘high’ for 16 studies, ‘moderate’ for five studies and ‘low’ for four studies. More high-quality longitudinal studies and mechanistic research are needed to clarify the role of sleep and of type of MP/WD use (e.g. social media) on mental health trajectories in children and adolescents.

Prevalence of problematic smartphone usage and associated mental health outcomes amongst children and young people: a systematic review, meta-analysis and GRADE of the evidence

Exposure to and use of mobile devices in children aged 1–60 months

The associations between screen time and mental health in adolescents: a systematic review.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Over the last ten years, the communication and information landscape has changed drastically with the development and rapid uptake of new portable devices such as smartphones or tablets, which are able to provide instant access to the internet anywhere. The likelihood of owning a smartphone increases with age, with market research reporting 83% of children in the UK aged 12–15 own a smartphone and 59% own a tablet. Up to 64% of children aged 12–15 have three or more devices of their own [ 1 ]. Alongside increased ownership rates, multifunctionality has expanded; a child’s phone may now enable internet browsing, games, applications, learning, online communication, and social networking.

The growing use of these technologies has raised concerns about how exposure patterns may affect children and adolescents’ wellbeing, as mental health disorders constitute one of the dominant health problems of this age group [ 2 ]. Increases in digital device usage have been hypothesized to be responsible for the secular trend of increasing internalizing symptoms, poorer wellbeing, and suicidal behaviours in adolescent populations [ 3 ]. It is reported that between 10–20% of children and adolescents suffer from a mental health problem globally [ 4 , 5 ] and up to 50% of mental disorders emerge under the age of 15 [ 6 ]. A recent meta-analysis estimates the prevalence of any depressive disorder in children and adolescents is 2.6% (95% CI 1.7–3.9), and of any anxiety disorder is 6.5% (95% CI 4.7–9.1) [ 7 ]. Recent studies have shown that the usage of mobile devices in children and adolescents may be associated with depression [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], anxiety [ 8 , 10 , 15 , 16 ] and with behavioural problems [ 17 ]. Particular patterns of smartphone-related behaviour, termed as ‘problematic smartphone use’ may be responsible for poor mental health associations [ 18 ].

Initially, research focussed on the physiological aspects of exposure to mobile phones or wireless devices (MP/WD) that use radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). The Stewart Report identified that children and adolescents may be especially susceptible to exposure due to their developing nervous systems, greater average RF deposition in the brain compared with adults, and a longer lifetime of exposure [ 19 ]. It is still unclear whether exposure to RF-EMF from MP/WD can affect cognitive and emotional development in children and adolescents [ 20 ].

However, health effects of MP/WD on children and adolescents could also stem from psychological, social and behavioural factors related to their use. Adolescence is a dynamic phase of social and emotional development characterised by a change in the intensity and quality of communications among peers [ 21 ]. Adolescents have a constant need to interact and to be acknowledged by others, so that they can define their role and status in the peer group [ 22 ]. This distinctive pattern of socialization contributes to and is reflected by the pervasive use of social media embedded in MP/WD at this stage of life and research so far has focussed on this aspect.

Physiologically, adolescence is characterized by a delay in bedtime and a decrease in length of sleep with age [ 23 ], and sleep deficits are highly prevalent [ 24 ]. Given the pivotal role of sleep in adolescents’ health and development, research has investigated the associations between bedtime use of MP/WD, sleep disturbance and poor mental health outcomes. Studies to date report growing evidence of the detrimental impact of these technologies on sleep, although the specific relationship with mental health remains to be fully understood [ 25 ], including potential mechanisms such as (1) displacement of sleep by directly interrupting sleep time [ 26 ], (2) impact on circadian rhythm due to exposure to blue and bright light from screens [ 27 ] and (3) sleep disturbance due to the content of messages received pre-bedtime [ 28 ].

The complex relationship between factors including (but not limited to) exposure to RF-EMF, light from screens, engagement with internet or social media content, peer communication and their physiological and psychological consequences represents a challenge to determining definitive associations of interest between children and adolescents’ MP/WD use and mental health. This research field has evolved through different theoretical approaches and become the centre of media interest. However, previous reviews have either focussed on the psychological or behavioural aspects [ 29 ], or specifically on RF-EMF exposures for MP only [ 30 , 31 ], and overlooked key information on confounders, such as socio-demographic factors. It is important when synthesizing these findings that all aspects of MP/WD use are considered. For example, mobile phone use is related to exposures hypothesized to have psychological effects (e.g., RF-EMF, screen-light), but these often occur simultaneously with changes of behaviour (e.g., reduced sleep, physical activity). Furthermore, different purposes of use may have different levels and temporal patterns of usage. Disentangling these effects often requires complex, tailored study-designs with advanced exposure measurement tools, and discussion of these issues with respect to MP/WD use and mental health is often missing. An assessment of the methodological quality of the available evidence to date could direct future research, policy and health recommendations around children and adolescents’ use of MP/WD. This evidence synthesis is also much needed now that digital tools for mental health hold the promise to overcome barriers to access support [ 32 ]. As the current COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the move towards a “digital mental health revolution”, it is crucial to identify if and under which conditions MP/WD use may be detrimental.

Our aims are to undertake a systematic review and appraisal of the evidence with a primary objective of assessing the relationship between duration or frequency of MP/WD use and children and adolescents’ mental health through synthesis of findings from individual quantitative observational studies conducting inferential analysis on this relationship. We define our exposure as any mobile or portable technologies that use RF-EMF to connect with the internet, cellular network, or cordless base station. This includes mobile phones, tablets and smartphones. Studies investigating only the use of devices that are not wireless (e.g. TV) or handheld in the same manner as tablets and phones (e.g. laptops) were excluded.

Secondary objectives are to synthesise findings on whether:

Impact on mental health is influenced by the temporal pattern (e.g. bedtime)

Different modes of use (e.g. calls, social media, instant messaging) have distinct effects on mental health

Impact on mental health differs for specific outcomes, in particular: internalizing symptoms (e.g. anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation/self-harm), externalizing symptoms (e.g. attention, concentration) and general wellbeing.

Search strategy and selection criteria

This review was written in accordance with PRISMA statement recommendations (see Supplementary Material Table S1 for PRISMA checklist) [ 33 ] and was prospectively registered on PROSPERO (CRD42019146750) [ 34 ]. Relevant published articles were identified using tailored electronic searches developed with experts on MP/WD exposure and mental health (see Supplementary Material Table S2 for search terms list where we outline examples of exposures and mental health outcomes in detail). We originally searched Medline, Embase and PsycINFO using OVID interface for all studies published prior to July 15th 2019 (see PRISMA Flowchart Fig. 1 ). Both published and unpublished studies with abstracts and full texts in English, Spanish and French were searched. BGS and AS completed backward and forward citation tracking of included studies. Any inconsistencies between selected studies were resolved by discussing this with a third author (MDS).

PRISMA Flowchart

Each study identified in the search was evaluated against the following predetermined criteria:

Population: Studies examining children or adolescent populations where at least 70% of participants are aged 18 years or under.

Exposure: Studies measuring daily or weekly duration or frequency of mobile phone or wireless device use (devices can include smartphones, cordless phones, tablets e.g., iPad).

Outcomes: Studies that report a standardized and/or quantifiable measure (i.e., administered in a consistent manner across subjects) of mental health symptoms or psychopathology prevalence, which we define as to include: measures of internalizing symptoms and disorders (e.g. anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation/self-harm), externalizing symptoms and disorders (e.g. attention, and conduct disorders), and well-being measures (e.g. measures of self-esteem, health-related quality of life) among children and adolescents.

Published in a peer-reviewed journal in English, Spanish or French.

Reported inferential statistics describing cross-sectional or longitudinal associations between MP/WD usage and mental health outcomes.

Studies were excluded if: (1) specific wireless device use could not be identified as a separate variable (i.e., the main independent variable in the statistical model is a composite such as “digital media use”, “screen time”); (2) only clinical populations; (3) only investigated: physical health (e.g.: headaches, fingers/neck pain), somatic symptoms, cognitive functions (attention, memory), safety (driving, related accidents), relational consequences (relationships, physical fitness, worse academic performance, sexual behaviour (sexting), cyberbullying, sleep habits, personality, study assessment or intervention of substance use/addiction, specific apps, smartphone and social media loss, reviews or qualitative studies. (4) Case studies, opinion pieces, editorials, comments, news, letters and not available in full text. After reviewer feedback, we excluded all articles published before January 1st 2011 as MP/WD devices used before this period are unlikely have the same interactivity of devices used at the time of search.

Data extraction and quality assessments

We (BGS, AS, ER, SG) extracted the data using a standard data extraction form (data extraction started on Aug 20, 2019). Data was verified by a second author, and then checked for statistical accuracy (AS or BGS). We chose to extract the estimands of associations from the final covariate-adjusted model specified by each group of study author, as not every iteration of the models was available to us. For transparency, the adjustment factors can be viewed clearly in the column second to the right of Tables 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 .

Authors of original papers were contacted to provide missing (subsample) data where necessary. AS and BGS both appraised each study independently for methodological quality and risk of bias using checklists adapted from the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS), originally designed to evaluate cohort studies [ 35 ], and considered a useful tool to assess risk of bias [ 36 ]. We used a customized checklist for cross-sectional studies, following an approach taken by previous systematic reviews of observational research [ 37 , 38 ]. We also used the STROBE individual component checklist to critically appraise the aspects of reporting related to risk of bias, e.g. study design or sampling methods [ 39 ]. We defined the most important covariate adjustment factors as previous diagnosis of mental disorder or prior mental health and demographic confounders (sex, age, socioeconomic status (SES)) based on the Newcastle–Ottawa quality assessment Scale (NOS). We then categorized studies by quality and risk of bias based on accepted thresholds for converting the Newcastle–Ottawa scales to AHRQ standards [ 40 ]. A description of the conversion rules can be found in the footnotes to Table S6 and S7 in the Supplementary Material.

Data synthesis

Given the high heterogeneity of the retrieved studies with regards to the primary explanatory variable of interest (MP and WD usage), the outcomes of interest (mental health), the objectives and the statistics used, statistical pooling was considered to be inappropriate and the quantitative data is synthesised narratively.

We classified studies by MP/WD exposure: (a) general MP/WD use (frequency/duration) and (b) bedtime MP/WD use; and by mental health outcomes: internalising symptoms, externalising symptoms and wellbeing. Children and adolescents’ emotional, behavioural and social difficulties are widely conceptualised in internalizing and externalizing symptoms groupings [ 41 ], endorsed by the DSM-V to provide directions in clinical and research settings [ 42 ]. We added a third category of wellbeing, to group scales measuring resilience, self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, life satisfaction, hopefulness etc., which are important indicators of how mental health is subjectively perceived and often valued by individuals above clinical symptoms [ 43 , 44 ].

All retrieved studies meeting eligibility criteria ( N = 25) were observational and investigated both genders. Ten (40%) employed a longitudinal design, while the remaining 15 (60%) had a cross-sectional design. One study [ 45 ] reported both cross-sectional and longitudinal findings. There were multiple studies drawing from the same population: three from the HERMES cohort [ 46 , 47 , 48 ], two from the LIFE cohort [ 49 , 50 ] and two from the same sample of high-school students [ 11 , 12 ].

The total number of research subjects was 164,284 who were aged between five and 21 years old. Most studies examined typically developing adolescents aged 8–18 years old. Three studies looked at young children aged 2–7 years old [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. One study that included young people aged up to 21 years old was included in the review as ~ 70% of the samples met the ≤ 18-years old criteria [ 8 ].

Studies investigating associations of mental health outcomes with only aggregated screen time without device-specific measures were excluded from the review. All studies measured MP use. Three studies also investigated the effect of cordless phone usage [ 14 , 17 , 48 , 52 , 53 ]. Two studies also included specific measures of tablets [ 51 , 54 ]; one study investigated other categories of WD including: eBook reader, laptop, portable media player and portable video game console [ 54 ]. Most studies used self-report questionnaires to assess MP/WD use: for example, asking participants to rate their daily or weekly use to best match an interval provided by the questionnaire [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 16 , 46 , 48 , 53 , 55 , 56 ], or with ordinal scales of frequency [ 14 , 28 , 47 , 57 , 58 ]. Studies with young children instead used parent questionnaires [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Twenty studies reported MP/WD general use and five with bedtime use. Seven studies collected data of MP/WD usage on weekends and weekdays separately [ 9 , 10 , 45 , 46 , 55 , 56 , 59 ], with five of these reporting associations with mental health separately for weekday and weekends [ 9 , 10 , 55 , 56 , 59 ]. Twenty studies reported internalizing symptoms, 11 externalizing symptoms, and ten well-being measures.

Details on study aim, sample characteristics, MP/WD use, mental health outcomes and measures, and findings are summarised in Tables 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 .

Quality assessment

The median and mean NOS scores of the longitudinal studies were 6 and 6.3 respectively. The median and mean scores for cross-sectional studies were 5 and 5.0 respectively. We converted each NOS Score for the 25 studies to AHRQ standards: risk of bias was rated as “high” for 16 studies, “moderate” for 5 studies and “low” for 4 studies. Risk of information bias was common as self-report measures were prevalent for outcome and exposure assessment. Additional factors contributing to high risk of bias included: risk of selection bias, attrition, and the absence of adjustment for confounding factors. All details regarding quality assessment, including summaries of risk of bias across studies, are reported in the Supplementary Material (Tables S4-S8).

Main Research Findings

Findings are presented by exposure time (general or bedtime), design (longitudinal or cross-sectional) and outcome assessed (internalising symptoms, externalising symptoms and wellbeing). For each group of longitudinal findings, we report the AHRQ Quality Band (“high”, “moderate” or “low” below refer to risk of bias). Figure 2 categorises effects reported by direction of association with mental health outcome and by whether bedtime or daily aggregate MP/WD usage was investigated. All cross-sectional studies were rated as high risk of bias, so for brevity these are not reported in the text below. Unless otherwise stated, we describe associations adjusted for all confounding variables reported in each study (see Tables 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 for details of covariates included in adjusted models).

Harvest plot of associations between MP/WD usage and mental health outcomes among children and adolescents included in the systematic review. Numbers refer to study references as cited in the reference list. Two studies [ 46 , 47 ] were excluded from this plot as they did not report direct inferential statistics between MP/WD and mental health

General use of wireless devices

Longitudinal findings.

Nine out of the 10 longitudinal studies included in this review examined associations between mental health outcomes and general use of MP/WD (Table 1 ).

Internalising symptoms : Two out of five studies (one low risk, one high) found a significant association between general use of MP/WD and measures of internalising symptoms. Bickham et al. [ 9 ] found that more frequent MP use recorded via a diary at baseline predicted higher depression scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at one-year follow-up. Similarly, Liu et al. [ 8 ] found that baseline high MP use was associated with higher incidence of depressive and anxiety symptoms measured with the BDI and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) after eight months. However, two studies (both moderate risk) from the LIFE cohort did not find any association between baseline general MP use and internalising symptoms recorded via the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)—parent-reported [ 50 ] and self-reported [ 49 ] at one-year follow-up. This finding is consistent with the largest longitudinal study reviewed (low risk), a cohort study that found no association between baseline texting duration and depression or anxiety measured with the self-report versions of the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R) in adolescents after two years [ 56 ].

Externalising symptoms : Three out of four studies (one low risk and two moderate risk) found a significant association between general use of MP/WD and measures of externalising symptoms. The first LIFE cohort study found that more frequent baseline parent-reported MP use predicted a higher score in the parent-reported hyperactivity/inattention and conduct problems SDQ subscales of young children after one year [ 50 ]. This evidence was consistent with the findings from two other studies: one found increase in conduct disorders after 18 months measured by ecological momentary assessment (EMA) [ 45 ] and the other found increase in concentration difficulties after one year measured by a four-point single-item Likert scale [ 48 ] in adolescents’ populations, both associated with more frequent self-reported texting [ 45 , 48 ] and duration of MP calls [ 48 ]. The latter study also measured cumulative RF-EMF dose from MP/WD and far-field environmental sources and found that whole-body RF-EMF dose was associated with concentration difficulties when calculated from self-reported duration of use (duration of data traffic, cordless phones), but not when calculated from objective measures (network operator-measured data volume and call duration) [ 48 ]. The second LIFE cohort study found no significant association with baseline MP/WD usage and self-reported SDQ in adolescents at one-year follow-up [ 49 ].

Wellbeing : Two out of three studies (both moderate risk) found a significant association between general use of MP/WD and measures of wellbeing. Use of MP/WD over a school year was negatively associated with positive self-concept but not with general wellbeing in adolescents [ 55 ]. Conversely, Poulain et al. [ 49 ] found that adolescents with higher MP use at baseline reported a decrease in wellbeing measured with the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scale by KIDSCREEN-27 at one-year follow-up. Another study (moderate risk) found that baseline duration of MP use for social communication had a positive indirect effect on children’s wellbeing measured with a bespoke scale at one and two-year follow-up, mediated through changes in social capital [ 57 ].

Cross-sectional findings

Twelve out of the 16 studies reporting cross-sectional findings included in this review examined associations between mental health outcomes and general use of MP/WD (Table 3 ). Two studies measured general use of MP and mental health, as well as problematic use of MP via specific questionnaires [ 46 , 47 ], but as they did not report direct associations between duration or frequency of MP/WD use and mental health, we do not report their findings in this section.

Internalising symptoms : Six out of nine studies found significant cross-sectional positive associations between general use of MP/WD and measures of internalising symptoms [ 10 , 11 , 13 , 15 , 16 , 52 ]. Most samples were adolescents and symptom measures varied from a single-item self-report to validated questionnaires. Overall, higher MP/WD use was associated with more anxiety or depressive symptoms, although in some studies this was limited to activities such as social networking and online chatting [ 11 , 15 ] or in females only [ 12 ]. One study reported an association in the opposite direction, reporting that adolescents experienced less anxiety and depressive symptoms measured with the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) and BDI on days when sending more text messages [ 45 ]. Two studies did not find any significant association [ 51 , 52 ].

One study also investigated the direct effect of RF-EMF on internalising symptoms [ 14 ], which showed that adolescents that used cordless phones had a higher likelihood of depressive symptoms compared to those who did not, but only true for cordless phones with frequencies ≤ 900 MHz [ 14 ].

Externalising symptoms : Three out of five cross-sectional studies found a significant positive association between general MP/WD use and measures of externalising symptoms (Table 3 ).

In particular, greater MP/WD use was related to concentration problems [ 16 , 53 ], attention problems [ 16 ], hyperactivity symptoms [ 51 ], conduct problems [ 51 ], and hostility [ 15 ]. In contrast, no association was found with externalising symptoms reported by parents or teachers in young children [ 52 ].

Wellbeing : Two cross-sectional studies reported cross-sectional associations between general MP use and measures of wellbeing. One study found that adolescents who used MP for social media had significantly lower self-esteem [ 15 ]. Using more sophisticated modelling in a large sample of adolescents, Przybylski & Weinstein [ 59 ] described an inverted-U-shape relationship between digital-screen time and mental wellbeing, such that moderate engagement with MP is not harmful and may be advantageous, and effects may differ on weekdays compared to weekends.

Bedtime use of wireless devices

Only one (low risk) out of 10 longitudinal studies included in this review examined associations between mental health outcomes and bedtime MP use, measured both at baseline and at three-year follow-up [ 60 ] (Table 4 ).

Internalising symptoms : Increased bedtime MP use from baseline to follow-up was not associated with changes in depressed mood measured with a bespoke 5-item scale, after adjusting for sleep behaviour [ 60 ].

Externalising symptoms : Increased bedtime MP use from baseline to follow-up was not associated with changes in externalizing behaviour measured with a bespoke 7-item scale, after adjusting for sleep behaviour [ 60 ].

Wellbeing : Increased bedtime MP use from baseline to follow-up was not associated with changes in coping abilities and self-esteem measured with bespoke 1 item and 3-item scales, after adjusting for sleep behaviour [ 60 ].

Four out of the 19 cross-sectional studies included in this review examined associations between mental health outcomes and bedtime MP/WD use (Table 2 ).

Internalising symptoms : All three studies investigating associations between bedtime MP use and measures of internalising symptoms found significant positive associations. In particular, more frequent and longer bedtime use was associated with higher depressive [ 58 , 61 ], anxiety symptoms [ 58 ], suicidal feelings and self-injury [ 28 ]. However, in two studies this was partially mediated through reduced sleep duration [ 58 ] and sleep difficulties [ 61 ].

Externalising symptoms : No retrieved cross-sectional study investigated the associations between bedtime MP use and measures of externalising symptoms.

Wellbeing : One cross-sectional study described that adolescents who used MP at bedtime scored less on the HRQoL scale by KIDSCREEN-52 compared to those who did not, particularly when using screen mobile devices in a dark room [ 54 ].

This systematic review evaluated the current evidence on associations between MP/WD use and mental health outcomes in children and adolescents across 25 studies published up to 2019. With regards to our objectives, firstly, we found evidence to suggest that greater use of MP/WD may be associated with poorer mental health in children and adolescents, but that the strength of the associations vary partly depending on the time and nature of MP/WD usage. Secondly, we found evidence that bedtime MP/WD duration or frequency of use in particular is associated with worse mental health. Third, based on limited available research we found no evidence supporting a direct impact of RF-EMF on mental health. Finally, more studies are needed to clarify whether the different uses of MP/WD have distinct impacts on specific psychopathology. In particular, we found that the general use of MP/WD might be associated with externalising symptoms in children and adolescents.

We found substantial between-study heterogeneity in the choice of exposures and mental health outcomes, methods of exposure assessment, scales used to assess outcomes, study design, population selection, and approaches taken to address confounding variables—limiting our ability to infer general conclusions. This combined with the fact that a large proportion of studies (16 out of 25) were rated as high risk of bias, may explain the considerable between-study discrepancies on the presence/direction of associations found. Limitations to exposure assessment (as discussed below) imply that some associations could have been missed, while lack of correction for known confounding variables and differential recall bias in studies with cross-sectional design may have inflated the magnitude of associations [ 62 ]. Our synthesis is predominantly based on cross-sectional data, with few longitudinal studies to date producing inconsistent results.

The results of the current review largely align with recent systematic reviews on aggregated electronic screen time in children and young people, which have concluded that there are positive small but significant correlations between screen time and young children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviours [ 63 , 64 ], and that longitudinal associations between screen time and depressive symptoms varied between different devices and uses [ 64 ].

MP/WD usage

The strength and direction of associations between MP/WD use and mental health outcomes appear to depend on exposure-related factors including: the type of device, the purpose and the time-pattern of use, and the method of exposure assessment. For example, significant associations between MP use and symptoms of depression are reported for general MP use, but not when only measuring texting longitudinally [ 56 ] and fewer symptoms were reported on days when adolescents sent more texts in a cross-sectional study [ 45 ]. Similarly, no association with mental health outcomes emerged from specifically examining the effect of phone call duration or frequency in adolescents [ 14 , 15 , 48 ], unless calls occurred at night-time [ 58 , 60 ]. Six studies specifically reported to be measuring smartphone use [ 11 , 12 , 15 , 51 , 57 , 59 ]. Almost all other studies reported aggregated measures from devices capable of internet use with those that are not capable, making disentangling smartphone-specific effects impossible.

Overall, our observations are consistent with previous literature on differential effects depending on modes of technology use. For example, interactive screen time such as the use of a computer has been found to be more detrimental to sleep than passive screen time such as television watching [ 24 , 65 ]. Historically, aggregated “screen time” was believed to impact health via displacing activity away from more adaptive behaviours [ 66 ], but this fails to capture the current diverse scopes of MP/WD use, from information seeking, to social interaction and entertainment [ 67 ]. Future studies should clarify how different modes of MP/WD use may have distinct psychological consequences, some of which are likely to foster resilience as well as increase vulnerability to mental health disorders.

An emerging area of the literature that holds promise explaining how the use of mobile phone use may explain variation in mental health in young people involves defining problematic mobile phone use or problematic smartphone use (PSU). This domain of behaviours has been conceptualised in a way that corresponds to the constructs of behavioural addiction. Previous studies have defined PSU through self-report scales with items with diagnostic criteria that resemble the criteria for substance use disorders (SUD), specifically symptoms of dependence such as loss of control (trouble limiting one’s smartphone use), tolerance (progressive increase in smartphone use to achieve the same psychological rewards) and withdrawal (negative symptoms on withdrawal) [ 68 ]. This approach has already shown that PSU is associated with poorer wellbeing and mental illness: a recent meta-analysis investigating psychological and behavioural dysfunctions related to smartphone use in young people has shown that PSU was associated with an increased odds of depression, anxiety, and stress; however, most research subjects within the pooled sample for depression and anxiety were over the age of 18 [ 18 ]. Furthermore, in common with other related constructs of problematic technology use associated with dysfunction (such as internet addiction and internet gaming addiction [ 69 , 70 ]), some commentators have raised concerns that diagnosing individuals with PSU who display behavioural addictive symptoms with borrowed items from the diagnostic criteria of substance addiction disorders may not improve understanding of problematic use of technology’s aetiology and psychological sequelae [ 71 , 72 ]. Nonetheless, although out the scope of this review, investigating MP/WD usage through the paradigm of PSU and addiction research with younger children, who are not yet as studied as college students, could potentially inform this field.

A major limitation in most studies was the choice of self-report measures to assess MP/WD exposure without external validation. Self-report device use is subject to measurement error such as recall difficulty and bias (e.g. call duration is considerably overestimated in adolescents populations [ 73 , 74 ]). However, as children and adolescents favour online activity over calls and use wi-fi, data from self-report questionnaires may be more reliable indicators than activity inferred from operator-reported data [ 75 ]. Some self-report methods may be more robust, for example EMA may eliminate recall bias compared to self-report questionnaires or diaries [ 9 ], but participants may selectively respond to certain EMA signals [ 76 ]. Combining different methods of assessment has so far highlighted incongruencies [ 47 , 48 ] and suggests a need for refining methodological rigour in measuring exposure. Future study-designs should confront these potential sources of bias by cross-validating different self-report instruments combined with device-recorded assessments of MP/WD use. Understanding measurement of MP/WD use and how likely exposure misclassification occurs is of critical importance. Some researchers have used duration of usage as a proxy for whether smartphone usage is problematic, i.e., is excessive and includes behaviours linked to addiction and impaired control. There is no established cut-off beyond which usage is defined as problematic, nor is usage alone sufficient for this classification without subjective distress [ 77 ]. Measures of problematic use can capture constructs that are distinct from measures of daily usage and duration, yet only with improving tracking and logging media use can the relationship between the two be understood [ 78 ].

Assessment of mental health

Assessment of outcomes also included a wide range of different instruments, hindering direct comparison and limiting conclusive generalisable data synthesis. Mental health outcomes were investigated with a variety of self-report measures including ad hoc items [ 13 , 16 , 28 , 53 , 57 ], scales [ 8 , 12 , 17 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 56 , 59 ], sections of scales [ 9 , 10 , 14 , 15 , 45 , 60 , 61 ] and the same scale was even used with different cut-off levels [ 11 , 12 , 17 , 46 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 54 , 55 ].

No study examined clinically diagnosed mental disorders and only one study used a self-report version of a structured interview: the CIS-R [ 56 ]. Given the public health relevance of this research area, we recommend use of validated instruments suitable for the general population but that have been standardised against clinical cut-offs (such as the PHQ-9, GAD-7, SDQ) and validated for younger children combined with parent-reported outcomes, such as the Common Measures for Mental Health Science [ 79 ]. Furthermore, robustness of findings would be increased by linkage with clinical data such as health records, with a view to drawing policy recommendations.

Radiofrequency-EMF

We found no clear evidence supporting a direct effect of RF-EMF on mental health in children and adolescents. Only one study from the search time period directly assessed RF-EMF exposure using dosimeters [ 48 ]. Only designs that combine measures of device usage with measurements from all local RF-EMF sources (Bluetooth, other wireless networks), can discern whether RF-EMF dosage from MP/WD is responsible for variation in mental health outcomes. Even with these measures, disentangling effects is not straightforward, since MP/WD usage often co-occurs with changes in behaviour. Schoeni, et al. [ 48 ] showed one approach to addressing these issues; alongside self-reported device usage, network operator-reported calls and data traffic, and other local RF-EMF sources, they measured types of device usage deemed negative exposure controls for RF-EMF (gaming on computers, instant messaging). They found the duration of data traffic on the mobile phone, or the number of texts sent per day were more consistently associated with symptoms of concentration difficulties than one-year cumulative RF-EMF dose, suggesting mechanisms other than RF-EMF absorption were likely to explain differences in concentration. Further research in this area must move beyond exposimeter measurement and modelling of RF-EMF exposures given their inability to accurately measure RF levels from the user’s mobile phone. 5G base stations use narrow beams aimed from base stations to the user’s device. A large proportion of RF-EMF dosage will be triggered by a user’s device demanding data from the network, resulting in high spatio-temporal variations in the RF-EMF exposure. Future studies investigating effects of RF-EMF from mobile devices may now require personal exposure monitors worn on the body to address these challenges, whilst continuing to use device-reporting software, and activity-logging mapped with spatio-temporal data [ 80 ].

The role of sleep

Consistent with previous literature, we found credible evidence that adverse outcomes may derive from MP/WD use at night. All cross-sectional studies examining bedtime use found a significant association with worse mental health, including higher levels of internalizing symptoms [ 28 , 58 , 61 ] and lower wellbeing [ 28 , 54 ].

There is good evidence that sleep may act as a mediator for the effects of MP/WD on depression symptoms. Two studies found a mediating role for sleep difficulties [ 60 , 61 ], and one found sleep duration mediated this relationship [ 58 ]. In both cases, the association between mobile phone use and depression was attenuated when conditioning on sleep and other demographic variables. This mediation could occur through the content of messages received, which could increase cognitive and emotional arousal [ 28 , 60 ]. Alternatively, sleep quality could be affected by physical mechanisms such as melatonin suppression via exposure to bright light from screens, as observed in lab research [ 81 , 82 ]; findings from Mireku et al. [ 54 ] support this as they found that young adolescents were found to have a greater likelihood of lower HRQoL when using MP/WD at night-time in the dark as opposed to with lights on. Two studies however found that the association between bedtime use and internalizing symptoms persisted even when adjusting for sleep duration [ 28 , 58 ] or sleep latency [ 28 ]. Taken together, this suggests that MP/WD is only partially mediated by sleep duration or quality [ 26 , 83 ], and may affect mental health through other mechanisms. Only one longitudinal study conditioned on sleep behaviour and found that the direct association between bedtime MP/WD and all mental health indicators was non-significant when controlling for sleep behaviour [ 60 ].

A few studies examining the effects of general MP/WD use also controlled for either sleep duration or sleep problems with mixed findings dependent on gender and purpose of device use [ 10 , 12 ]. One study using cross-lagged panel analysis identified bidirectional longitudinal associations between both MP use and mental health outcomes as well as between MP use and sleep outcomes [ 8 ], suggesting that more complex models might be needed to infer the correct causal mechanisms.

Future longitudinal research should combine measures of both general and bedtime MP/WD use with sleep behaviour assessment. Given the known relationship between sleep disorders and behavioural problems such as delinquency, drug use and sexual risk-taking [ 84 ], future research should also investigate the role of sleep variables as potential confounders or mediators of the association between MP/WD use and externalising symptoms in children and early adolescents.

Social media

We found that the association between MP and mental health outcomes was influenced by the nature and type of use, with social media more often associated with negative sequalae. Three cross-sectional studies found consistent evidence that social media use was associated with negative mental health outcomes in adolescents, in particular higher internalising symptoms including depression, anxiety, negative self-esteem and somatization [ 11 , 12 , 15 ] and also externalising symptoms [ 15 ]. More than two hours/day on social networking and online chats was associated with a higher risk of depression in Japanese adolescents, even when adjusting for sleep duration [ 11 , 12 ]. These findings suggest that the content viewed or received, or the type of interactions developed by children and adolescents using MP/WD (e.g., on social media sites) may be harmful, rather than the duration of general use of MP/WD itself. Accordingly, recent research has focussed on potential harm from either broadcasted ideals driving feelings of inadequacy or social pressure to conform [ 85 ] or from normalising, triggering and contagion of harmful behaviour, such as self-harm [ 86 ] and orthorexia [ 87 ].

The specific relationship between social media and mental health outcomes may explain a chronological trend found in our review: only studies collecting data from 2012 onwards [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 14 , 15 , 16 ] found a significant association between internalizing symptoms and general MP use in adolescents. In 2019, half the UK’s 10-year-olds own a smartphone, compared with only 18% of 8-11 s, and 62% of 12-15 s in 2012 [ 1 , 88 ]. Smartphones allow truly mobile and continuous access to the internet, including at sensitive times (bedtime) and without parental supervision, which may explain this observed trend.

These initial findings need to be replicated in longitudinal studies dissecting the mental health impact of different types of MP/WD use. None of the reviewed studies probed for specific uses of social media (e.g., interpersonal support, social comparison), nor for the time spent on each platform. Unless the specific type of data and content viewed by children and adolescents on social media (and other online activities using MP/WD) is analysed, much of the commentary on the mechanism by which usage might affect mental health remains conjecture [ 89 ]. Digital phenotyping could represent a promising avenue towards understanding these mechanisms (as well as their interaction with other factors such as sleep). By measuring mental health symptoms and device-recorded children’s digital activities at a high temporal resolution [ 90 ], future studies could understand the relationship between inter-individual heterogeneity in mental health trajectories and MP/WD messaging patterns and online usage, supported by new technologies such as screenomics, the machine-learning assisted categorisation of images and text [ 91 , 92 ]. Whilst there are ethical challenges, these could be overcome by collaborations between researchers and social media corporations (who already hold children’s social network activity data), as well as strong engagement work with young people and parents in co-producing acceptable frameworks for data capture, data protection and study design.

Socio-demographic factors

Most but not all studies controlled for socio-demographic factors [ 15 , 16 , 45 , 57 ] with considerable heterogeneity in the covariates included (e.g., age, gender, SES, parents’ education level, family composition and ethnicity). Many of these factors are known to be associated with both MP/WD use and mental health outcomes. For example, gender divides [ 93 ], and differences in households´ SES shift the use and access to information and communications technology [ 94 ], the pattern of use and how parents manage their teens’ technology use [ 95 ]. Failing to condition analyses on these variables, e.g. SES, is likely to exaggerate the relationship between MP/WD usage and mental health outcomes. Some studies reported that age and gender may modify the effect of MP/WD use on mental health, though findings were inconsistent [ 28 , 61 ].

When is MP/WD use positive for mental health?

A number of studies reported findings of a positive rather than detrimental association between MP/WD use and mental health [ 45 , 57 , 59 ]. Przybylski and Weinstein [ 59 ] describe a concave-down quadratic model that supports the Goldilocks Hypothesis, i.e. that moderate technology use is not harmful and even advantageous for wellbeing. A moderate MP/WD use for communication may strengthen social connections and provide access to support from interpersonal relationships and communities, which may, in turn, improve psychological wellbeing [ 96 , 97 , 98 ]. This is also supported by evidence that social capital mediates the effects of smartphone use for communication [ 57 ].

Understanding the positive impact of MP/WD use on children and adolescents’ mental health is crucial in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy responses, such as physical distancing, social isolation, and school closures. Evidence from studies on online activity of adolescents from early phases of the pandemic (outside the scope of this review as they did not focus on MP/WD-specific behaviour) suggest that time fostering online connections could act as a buffer against the negative impact of isolation on mental health as online interactions are likely to mimic offline dynamics [ 99 , 100 ]. However, other studies have found opposite findings: greater time on social media during the pandemic was related to higher depressive symptoms, despite lower feelings of loneliness [ 101 ], and divergent findings depending on the purpose of use and personality [ 102 ]. Given this dramatic change in context, we re-ran our search using our original search terms with the addition of COVID-19 keywords (see Supplementary Material). We found two studies that reported epidemiological analysis of child and adolescent MP/WD use and psychological outcomes during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic assessments, but neither identified direct associations between post-pandemic change in MP/WD use and mental health [ 103 , 104 ].

Limitations

Due to heterogeneity in exposure and outcome assessments, we were not able to conduct a meta-analysis to calculate pooled effects. Device definitions in reviewed studies were often not specific, aggregating measures from devices capable of internet use with those that are not capable, making disentangling device- and activity-specific effects challenging. We encourage future reviews to conduct meta-analyses of specific MP/WD types of activity and their effects on mental health, as Sohn et al. have conducted with PSU [ 18 ]. A further consequence of not conducting a meta-analysis is that we were not able to estimate publication bias, evidence of which has been reported in a recent systematic review into child screen time and behaviour problems [ 63 ].

Our ability to infer causal relationships between MP/WD use and mental health was limited by the small number of longitudinal studies, and for those studies further limited by the assumption of unidirectional causal relationships. It remains unknown whether evidence on the effects technology use is skewed by children and adolescents seeking support for ongoing symptoms and bidirectional causal loops may exist between MP/WD usage and mental health [ 105 , 106 ]. Indeed, a recent systematic review on longitudinal studies in this field reported the relation between screen time and subsequent depression was stronger than the reverse, i.e., depression and subsequent screen time [ 64 ].

Other limitations include: first, most evidence to date comes from high-income countries, which limits the generalizability of findings. Second, despite most of the studies controlling for SES, many studies relied on convenience samples drawn from schools instead of population-based samples and therefore may not reflect the global range of children’s social, cultural and economic environments. Third, we decided to adopt broad groupings of “internalizing symptoms”, “externalizing symptoms”, and “wellbeing” to synthesise the data, which may result in loss of important information about potential effects related to more specific disorders. Finally, although the role of cognitive function falls outside of the scope of the present review, it is well known that cognitive functioning affects emotional processing and therefore in turn mental health. This is particularly so in early adolescence when pubertal and cognitive development occur in tandem with radical changes in one’s social environment. Future research should investigate whether MP/WD use´s impact on cognitive function might mediate effects on mental health outcomes, and explore potential mechanistic pathways between MP/WD use, cognitive development and mental health.

Conclusions and future directions

This systematic review expands upon previous work synthesizing findings regarding MP/WD usage and mental health from a predominantly under 18 years population. The studies included presented heterogeneous measures of both MP/WD usage and mental health, which limits the ability to synthesise findings in a conclusive and clinically meaningful way. More robust and standardised measures of MP/WD use are strongly needed to advance this area of research. In summary, we found suggestive evidence supporting a negative impact of general MP/WD use on externalising symptoms in children and early adolescents, while findings on internalising symptoms are less consistent. Sleep disturbance due to MP/WD use appears to influence mental health outcomes but the specific role of sleep remains to be clarified. Major gaps remain, such as the need to dissect effects based on different types of MP/WD use and in relation to specific population characteristics.

Despite the fears held around wireless technologies, we believe that at this stage there is not enough evidence supporting a causal negative relationship between MP/WD use and children and adolescent’s mental health to justify particular public health interventions. It is likely that a large between-subject variability exists in how MP/WD usage may predict the development of mental health outcomes based on the interaction with a child’s psychosocial context and neurobiological factors. Future research should focus on identifying groups at-risk for intervention or behavioural modification with respect to technology use. This is of increasing importance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is accelerating digital transformations and divides, including how much adolescents use technology for learning, connection and social support.

Availability of data and material

Not applicable.

Code availability

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BGS is supported by a fellowship funded by the Koplowitz foundation. AS and the work is supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) [grant number MR/R015732/1]. MBT is the principal investigator of the SCAMP study, which is funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/V004190/1), and which was originally commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care via the independent Research Initiative on Health and Mobile Telecommunications—a partnership between public funders and the mobile phone industry (Secondary School Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Neurocognitive and Behavioural Outcomes/091/0212). The SCAMP study was part supported by the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, which is currently funded by the MRC (MR/S019669/1, 2019–2024). The SCAMP study is part funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Environmental Exposures and Health, and the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards, which are partnerships between Public Health England and Imperial College London (Health Protection Research Units -2012–10141). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the MRC, NIHR, Public Health England or the Department of Health and Social Care. Infrastructure support for the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics was provided by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). MBT’s Chair and the work in this paper is supported in part by a donation from Marit Mohn to Imperial College London to support Population Child Health through the Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing.

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Braulio M. Girela-Serrano and Alexander D.V. Spiers are joint first authors of equal contribution.

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Braulio M. Girela-Serrano, Liu Ruotong, Shivani Gangadia & Martina Di Simplicio

Westminster Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, London, W9 2NW, UK

Braulio M. Girela-Serrano

MRC Centre for Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary’s Campus, Norfolk Place, London, W2 1PG, UK

Alexander D. V. Spiers & Mireille B. Toledano

NIHR Health Protection Research Unit On Chemical Radiation Threats and Hazards, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary’s Campus, Norfolk Place, London, W2 1PG, UK

Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary’s Campus, Norfolk Place, London, W2 1PG, UK

Mireille B. Toledano

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Girela-Serrano, B.M., Spiers, A.D.V., Ruotong, L. et al. Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: a systematic review. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-02012-8

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MINI REVIEW article

Excessive smartphone use is associated with health problems in adolescents and young adults.

$\nYehuda Wacks$

Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel

Background and Aims: This present paper will review the existing evidence on the effects of excessive smartphone use on physical and mental health.

Results: Comorbidity with depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD and alcohol use disorder. Excessive smartphone use is associated with difficulties in cognitive-emotion regulation, impulsivity, impaired cognitive function, addiction to social networking, shyness and low self-esteem. Medical problems include sleep problems, reduced physical fitness, unhealthy eating habits, pain and migraines, reduced cognitive control and changes in the brain's gray matter volume.

In Conclusion: Excessive smartphone use is associated with psychiatric, cognitive, emotional, medical and brain changes that should be considered by health and education professionals.

Introduction

Excessive smartphone use in young adults.

The effects of excessive use of computer screens and smartphones are raising serious concerns among health and educational authorities due to negative effects of such use in children and adolescents. Recent reviews have argued that the evidence supporting excessive smartphone use as an addictive behavior is scarce. In particular, Billieux ( 1 ) have argued that there is insufficient evidence for behavioral and neurobiological similarities between excessive smartphone use other types of addictive behaviors. Panova and Carbonell ( 2 ) also argued that there is insufficient evidence to support for the diagnosis of smartphone addiction and finally Montag et al. ( 3 ) have argued that excessive smartphone use is a form of Internet Use Disorder. The smartphones are being used for various purposes such as gaming, Social Network Services (SNS), watching video clips (YouTube). Therefore, excessive use of smartphones may have difference characteristics according to the type of smartphone use. This present paper will review the existing evidence on excessive smartphone use, and it will discuss its similarities with and differences from Internet addiction.

A PubMed Central ® and Web of Science search engines have been used with the terms: “excessive smartphone use” and “smartphone addiction” until February 2021 that resulted in 84 research studies in English language.

Predictors of Excessive Smartphone-Use

The main factors predicting excessive smartphone use were being female, preoccupation, conflict, and use for ubiquitous trait whereas the protective factor was use for learning ( 4 ). Excessive use of smartphones was correlated with impairment in the function of the family and relationship with friends, impulsiveness, and low self-esteem in South Korean adolescents ( 5 ). Finally, smartphone gaming was associated with excessive smartphone use among adolescents ( 6 ).

Sensation Seeking and Boredom

Turgeman et al. ( 7 ) have reported an interaction between high sensation seeking and abstinence whereby abstinence for 1.5 h increased excessive smartphone use ratings in high sensation seeking students. This may be explained by boredom, avoidance of uncomfortable situations and the need for entertainment ( 8 – 12 ). Lepp et al. ( 13 ) have found an association between excessive smartphone use and living sedentary life or being an “active couch potato. “Ben-Yehuda et al. ( 14 ) have investigated the effects of involvement and of interest in three conditions: state of boredom, passive activity and active activity in counter-balanced order in University students. Excessive smartphone use was not influenced by any interest or involvement in the lecture, indicating a compulsive behavior. Finally, Li et al. ( 15 ) have demonstrated that individuals with an external locus of control had less control over their smartphone use and therefore could have more negative effects such as poor sleep quality, lower academic achievements, and lower ratings of well-being.

Insecure Attachment, Poor Cognitive-Emotional Regulation and Communication Problems

Insecure attachment positively correlated with problematic smartphone use in students with unhealthy family function but not with mother-infant bonding or maternal mental health ( 16 ). Eichenberg et al. ( 17 ) showed an association between excessive smartphone use and an insecure attachment style in Problematic adolescent users. A following study reported high scores in maladaptive Cognitive-emotion regulation (CER) strategies such as self-blame, blaming of others ruminating and catastrophizing thoughts ( 18 ). Experiential avoidance (i.e., attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories and physical sensations) has been associated with excessive smartphone use and social networks ( 19 ). Childhood emotional maltreatment correlated with problematic smartphone use in adolescents, and it was mediated by body image difficulties, depression, and social anxiety ( 20 ). Emotion regulation difficulties, unregulated eating, restrained eating, food addiction, and higher percent body fat were associated with excessive smartphone use among adolescents ( 21 ). Mahapatra ( 22 ) showed a strong association between both lack of self-regulation and loneliness on problematic smartphone use among adolescents that ultimately resulted in family, interpersonal conflicts, and poor academic performance. Among students, problematic smartphone users have shown high measures of worry and anger ( 23 ) whereas excessive reassurance seeking behavior mediated the association between rumination and problematic smartphone use ( 24 ). Poor communication skills were shown in Medical students who preferred to communicate emotions through texting rather than verbal communication ( 25 ) and they correlated with excessive smartphone use ( 26 ). Excessive use of the smartphone has negative impacts on people's lives by reducing face-to-face interactions, and increasing loneliness ( 27 ).

Impaired Cognitive Function

Problems in inhibitory control mechanisms in excessive smartphone users were reported ( 28 ). They have reported that while performing on the Go/NoGo task excessive smartphone users showed a negative N2 event-related potentials (ERPs) component showing reduced inhibitory control. There is further evidence for impaired attention, reduced numerical processing capacity, increased impulsivity, hyperactivity and negative social concern in heavy smartphone users ( 29 ). Heavy smartphone users showed. Inattention problems correlated with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) evoked potentials in the right prefrontal cortex. Wegmann et al. ( 30 ) have found no correlations between problematic social networks use and executive function and inhibitory control measured by the Go/NoGo task. However, regression analyses showed that increased problematic social networks use is associated with higher impulsivity, especially if executive functions or specific inhibitory control were impaired.

Social Media Use and Personality

Problematic social media use has been shown to be associated with “fear of missing out” (FOMO) ( 31 , 32 ). FOMO mediated relations between both fear of negative and positive evaluation with both problematic and social smartphone use. Withdrawal and FOMO ratings were higher among participants with 72 h restricted access to smartphones compared with those without ( 33 ). There was a correlation between Social communication use and excessive use of smartphones. FOMO mediated the relationships between anxiety and depression with problematic smartphone use ( 24 , 34 ). Excessive smartphone use has been associated with social comparisons on social networking sites and perceived stress ( 35 ). Personality factors such as conscientiousness, openness, emotional stability and neuroticism have been associated with problematic smartphone use ( 36 , 37 ) whereas impulsivity, excessive reassurance seeking, but not extraversion related to problematic smartphone use in other studies ( 38 , 39 ).

Comorbidity With Anxiety, Depression OCD, ADHD and Alcohol Use Disorder

There are several studies on the comorbidity of excessive smartphone use and mental disorders and its association with sleep problems, reduced fitness and pain. Excessive smartphone use has been associated with depression, anxiety ( 40 , 41 ) and social anxiety ( 7 , 42 – 44 ) shyness and low self-esteem ( 5 – 12 , 12 – 47 ) low psychological well-being ( 48 ) and low mental well-being ( 49 ). Excessive reassurance seeking correlated with problematic smartphone use severity, and its combination with rumination mediated the relationship between depression and anxiety severity with problematic smartphone use ( 50 ). Anxiety during the COVID-19 epidemic correlated with severity of problematic smartphone use, depression and generalized anxiety ( 51 ).

Early problematic smartphone use was found as a significant predictor of depression in a three-year longitudinal study from adolescence to emerging adulthood ( 52 ). Excessive mobile use was associated with high levels of depressive moods, with loneliness serving as a moderator of this mediation particularly in men ( 53 ). Depression and anxiety were significantly associated with both excessive smartphone use ( 54 ). Depressive mood and suicidal ideation were associated with social network smartphone use ( 55 ). Interestingly, the time spent in excessive smartphone use has predicted the level of stress in users who hardly used the smartphone for self-disclosure whereas those who engaged in disclosure of their emotions and problems online, this reduced their emotional problems ( 56 ). Problematic smartphone use has been associated with psychological distress and emotion dysregulation and emotion dysregulation was shown as a mediator in the relation between psychological distress and problematic smartphone use ( 57 ). Excessive smartphone use has been also associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder symptoms ( 58 ) and ADHD ( 59 , 60 ).

History of alcoholism and father's education level explained 26% of the variance of problematic smartphone use ( 60 ). In addition, alcohol use disorder, impulsivity (Barratt scale and ADHD) and elevated occurrence of PTSD, anxiety, and depression were associated with excessive smartphone use ( 61 ). Finally, the relationship between PTSD severity and problematic smartphone use was mediated by negative urgency (a component of impulsivity) ( 62 ).

Medical Complications- Sleep, Physical Fitness, Eyesight, Migraine and Pain

Excessive smartphone use was associated with reduced sleep time and sleep quality in adolescents ( 63 ). The association between media use in bed before sleep and depression was mediated by sleep disturbance ( 64 , 65 ). Furthermore, there was an association between excessive screen time and problems in sleep onset ( 66 ), insufficient sleep ( 67 ), and insomnia ( 68 ). Long-term problematic mobile use predicted new incidences of sleep disturbances and mental distress, which was ameliorated by its discontinuation ( 69 ). Excessive mobile phone use correlated with disturbed sleep pattern and quality ( 70 ) Excessive smartphone use was associated with poorer sleep quality and higher perceived stress ( 71 , 72 ), lowered physical activity, lower muscle mass and higher fat mass ( 73 ). Other medical conditions include acquired comitant esotropia (AACE) ( 74 ) increased ocular symptoms ( 75 ), headache complaints ( 76 , 77 ) and headache duration and frequency in migraine patients ( 78 ). Young chronic neck pain patients with overuse of smartphones had higher Cervical Disc Degeneration ( 79 ). Finally, excessive smartphone users had higher median nerve Cross sectional areas (CSA's) in their dominant hands ( 80 ).

Brain Imaging

A recent study has used diffusion MRI for assessment of white matter structural connectivity, and it has shown a positive association between activity in the right amygdala and excessive smartphone use in adolescents ( 81 ). Excessive smartphone users have shown impairment in cognitive control during emotional processing of angry faces and social interaction in fMRI ( 82 ). They also showed reduced functional connectivity in regions related to cognitive control of emotional stimuli including reward ( 83 ). Reduced Gray Matter Volume (GMV) was shown in problematic smartphone users and negative correlations between GMV in the right lateral Orbito Frontal Cortex (OFC) and measures of smartphone addiction ( 84 ). Lower activity in the right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and a negative correlation between individuals with excessive smartphone use and both ACC GMV and activity was reported ( 85 ). Furthermore, the strength of the resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between several brain regions in fMRI positively correlated with smartphone time in bed ( 86 ). Finally, exposure to smartphone pictures in fMRI was associated with activation of brain regions associated with drug addiction and correlations of these regions with smartphone addiction scores were reported ( 87 ).

Supplementary Table 1 shows details of the studies reviewed in this paper.

There have been several reviews in recent years that have discussed the issue whether excessive smartphone use is considered a behavioral addiction ( 1 , 2 ). In addition, studies have examined whether there are differences between excessive smartphone use and Internet use disorder (IUD). Montag et al. ( 3 ) have proposed that excessive smartphone use is essentially a type of IUD. In this sense, IUD should be divided into two types of use: a mobile use and a non-mobile use. They have suggested that there is a specific use of IUD of a particular content and a generalized IUD where several channels are overused. The rationale for this division is that motivation, cognitive and affective factors predispose individuals to prefer a specific application and type of device.

However, there is little empirical evidence in support of these assumptions ( 88 , 89 ). Although there may be small differences between some mechanisms and risk factors underlying online behavioral addictions, such as pornography use, gaming disorder and social network use, the resemblance between them is very strong ( 90 ). In addition, there are few studies that have examined whether specific cognitive and motivational mechanisms could lead to a preference of a specific type of device. Nevertheless, recent studies show that excessive use of the screens including, computer screens and smartphones is associated with serious mental problems and cognitive impairments ( 91 , 92 ). Therefore, we argue that research should focus on the negative consequences of excessive smartphone use rather than on whether it should be considered as a behavioral addiction.

Recent studies show that excessive smartphone use is associated with problems of mental health and impaired psychological well-being. There is consistent evidence for comorbidity between excessive smartphone use and other psychiatric disorders, such as depression, anxiety, OCD, and ADHD similar to Internet addiction ( 93 ). In addition, excessive smartphone use is related to loneliness, stress, and other negative emotions ( 56 , 94 ).

In addition to these psychological consequences, the excessive use of smartphones can potentially lead to impairments of cognitive functions. Such excessive use is related to impairments of specific attention domains (such as focused attention and divided attention), low inhibitory control, impaired working memory, reduced numerical processing capacity, and changes in social cognition. Since cognition and emotion are often intertwined it is not surprising that a common cognitive-emotional mechanism related to loss of control would be associated with impulsiveness, impairment in communication and relationship with friends and family.

Recent studies have also shown an association between an excessive use of smartphones and abnormal activity of regions in the prefrontal cortex and in the networks that connect to these regions ( 29 , 82 ). Novel findings show reduced lateral orbitofrontal gray matter, especially in social networking platforms overuse and that prolonged bedtime smartphone use has been associated with altered insula-centered functional connectivity. Gray matter volume reduction was observed also in the anterior cingulate similar to Internet and gaming disorder ( 95 ). Excessive smartphone use has also been associated with reduced cognitive control during the emotional processing in the brain.

The effects of excessive use of the media including TV, computer screens and smartphones is raising serious concerns among health and educational authorities due to deleterious effects of such use in children and adolescents. A recent study has shown an association between increased screen-based media use and lower microstructural integrity of brain white matter tracts that are associated with language and literacy skills in 5-year-old pre- school children, ( 96 ). Furthermore, a large study of 4,277 adolescents has shown a negative correlation between screen media activity and cortical thickness in fMRI implying premature aging of the brain ( 97 ). Finally, young adults and heavy media “multi-taskers” are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory, and they performed worse on a task-switching ability ( 98 ). The findings so far that span from early childhood to adolescents, rapidly growing societal phenomena, emphasize the need to assess the effects of media screens on cognitive function and the brain in children, adolescents and young adults.

Excessive smartphone use shares underlying mechanisms with other addictive behaviors such as gambling disorder, in particular, reduced cognitive control and impaired activity in the prefrontal cortex which affects decision-making and emotional processing ( 99 ). Addictions in adolescents share the tendency to experience poor emotional regulation, impulsivity and impaired cognitive control and reduced ability to experience pleasure in everyday life ( 100 ).

The major limitations in studies of excessive smartphone use and Internet addiction are that they are mainly cross-sectional studies without baseline measures and rely on associations between structural and functional changes in the brain and subjective measures and no proof of a causal role in the development of the adolescent or adult brain. Finally, the review is non-systematic and it has excluded non-English language articles.

The excessive use of the smartphone has been associated with impaired cognitive functions and mental health problems. There are unique findings on the association between using smartphones, need of constant stimulation, deficits in everyday cognitive functioning and brain changes which should send alarm signals to clinicians and educators in the modern world.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.669042/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: internet addiction, smartphone addiction, problematic smartphone use, internet use disorder, excessive smartphone use

Citation: Wacks Y and Weinstein AM (2021) Excessive Smartphone Use Is Associated With Health Problems in Adolescents and Young Adults. Front. Psychiatry 12:669042. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.669042

Received: 17 February 2021; Accepted: 26 April 2021; Published: 28 May 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Wacks and Weinstein. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Aviv M. Weinstein, avivweinstein@yahoo.com ; avivwe@ariel.ac.il

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Int J Pharm Investig
v.7(3); Jul-Sep 2017

Smartphone usage and increased risk of mobile phone addiction: A concurrent study

Subramani parasuraman.

Unit of Pharmacology, AIMST University, Kedah, Malaysia

Aaseer Thamby Sam

1 Unit of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, AIMST University, Kedah, Malaysia

Stephanie Wong Kah Yee

Bobby lau chik chuon.

This study aimed to study the mobile phone addiction behavior and awareness on electromagnetic radiation (EMR) among a sample of Malaysian population.

This online study was conducted between December 2015 and 2016. The study instrument comprised eight segments, namely, informed consent form, demographic details, habituation, mobile phone fact and EMR details, mobile phone awareness education, psychomotor (anxious behavior) analysis, and health issues. Frequency of the data was calculated and summarized in the results.

Totally, 409 respondents participated in the study. The mean age of the study participants was 22.88 (standard error = 0.24) years. Most of the study participants developed dependency with smartphone usage and had awareness (level 6) on EMR. No significant changes were found on mobile phone addiction behavior between the participants having accommodation on home and hostel.

Conclusion:

The study participants were aware about mobile phone/radiation hazards and many of them were extremely dependent on smartphones. One-fourth of the study population were found having feeling of wrist and hand pain because of smartphone use which may lead to further physiological and physiological complication.

INTRODUCTION

Mobile/hand phones are powerful communication devices, first demonstrated by Motorola in 1973, and made commercially available from 1984.[ 1 ] In the last few years, hand phones have become an integral part of our lives. The number of mobile cellular subscriptions is constantly increasing every year. In 2016, there were more than seven billion users worldwide. The percentage of internet usage also increased globally 7-fold from 6.5% to 43% between 2000 and 2015. The percentage of households with internet access also increased from 18% in 2005 to 46% in 2015.[ 2 ] Parlay, the addiction behavior to mobile phone is also increasing. In 2012, new Time Mobility Poll reported that 84% people “couldn't go a single day without their mobile devices.”[ 3 ] Around 206 published survey reports suggest that 50% of teens and 27% of parents feel that they are addicted to mobiles.[ 4 ] The recent studies also reported the increase of mobile phone dependence, and this could increase internet addiction.[ 5 ] Overusage of mobile phones may cause psychological illness such as dry eyes, computer vision syndrome, weakness of thumb and wrist, neck pain and rigidity, increased frequency of De Quervain's tenosynovitis, tactile hallucinations, nomophobia, insecurity, delusions, auditory sleep disturbances, insomnia, hallucinations, lower self-confidence, and mobile phone addiction disorders.[ 6 ] In animals, chronic exposure to Wi-Fi radiation caused behavioral alterations, liver enzyme impairment, pyknotic nucleus, and apoptosis in brain cortex.[ 7 ] Kesari et al . concluded that the mobile phone radiation may increase the reactive oxygen species, which plays an important role in the development of metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases.[ 8 ]

In recent years, most of the global populations (especially college and university students), use smartphones, due to its wide range of applications. While beneficial in numerous ways, smartphones have disadvantages such as reduction in work efficacy, personal attention social nuisance, and psychological addiction. Currently, the addiction to smartphones among students is 24.8%–27.8%, and it is progressively increasing every year.[ 9 ] Mobile phone is becoming an integral part to students with regard to managing critical situations and maintaining social relationships.[ 10 ] This behavior may reduce thinking capabilities, affect cognitive functions, and induce dependency. The signs of smartphone addiction are constantly checking the phone for no reason, feeling anxious or restless without the phone, waking up in the middle of night to check the mobile and communication updates, delay in professional performance as a result of prolonged phone activities, and distracted with smartphone applications.[ 11 ]

Mobile phone is the most dominant portal of information and communication technology. A mental impairment resulting from modern technology has come to the attention of sociologists, psychologists, and scholars of education on mobile addiction.[ 12 ] Mobile phone addiction and withdrawal from mobile network may increase anger, tension, depression, irritability, and restlessness which may alter the physiological behavior and reduce work efficacy. Hence, the present study was planned to study the addiction behavior of mobile phone usage using an online survey.

This study was approved by Human and Animal Ethics Committee of AIMST University (AUHAEC/FOP/2016/05) and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was conducted among a sample of Malaysian adults. The study participants were invited through personal communications to fill the online survey form. The study was conducted between December 2015 and 2016. The study instrument comprised eight segments, namely, informed consent information, consent acceptance page, demographic details, habituation, mobile phone fact and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) details, mobile phone awareness education, psychomotor (anxious behavior) analysis, and health issues. If any of the participants were not willing to continue in the study, they could decline as per their discretion.

Totally, 450 participants were informed about the study and 409 participated in the study. The demographic details of the study participants are summarized in Table 1 . The incomplete forms were excluded from the study. The participants' details were maintained confidentially.

Demographic details of the study participants

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Statistical analysis

Frequency of the data was calculated and the data were analyzed using two-sided Chi-square test with Yate's continuity correction.

Totally, 409 individuals participated in the study, of which 42.3% were males and 57.7% were females, between the age group of 18 and 55 years. Nearly 75.6% of the respondents were between the age group of 21 and 25 years. The mean age of the study participants was 22.88 (standard error = 0.24) years. The study participants' demographic details are summarized in Table 1 .

About 95% of the study participants were using smart phones, with 81.7% of them having at least one mobile phone. Most of the study participants used mobile phone for more than 5 years. Around 64.3% of the study participants use mobile phone for an hour (approximately) and remaining use it for more than an hour. Nearly 36.7% of the study participants have the habit of checking mobile phones in between sleep, while 27.1% felt inconvenience with mobile phone use. Majority of the respondents were using mobile phone for communication purposes (87.8%), photo shooting (59.7%), entertainment (58.2%), and educational/academic purposes (43.8%). Habits of mobile phone usage among the study participants are summarized in Table 2 .

Habituation analysis of mobile phone usage

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The study results indicate that 86.8% of the participants are aware about EMR and 82.6% of the study participants are aware about the dangers of EMR. The prolonged use/exposure to EMR may cause De Quervain's syndrome, pain on wrist and hand, and ear discomfort. Among the study participants, 46.2% were having awareness on De Quervain's syndrome, 53.8% were feeling ear discomfort, and 25.9% were having mild-to-moderate wrist/hand pain. Almost 34.5% of the study participants felt pain in the wrist or at the back of the neck while utilizing smartphones [ Table 3a ]. Many of the study participants also agreed that mobile phone usage causes fatigue (12% agreed; 67.5% strongly agreed), sleep disturbance (16.9% agreed; 57.7% strongly agreed), and psychological disturbance (10.8% agreed; 54.8% strongly agreed) [ Table 3b ]. The study participants were having level 6 of awareness on mobile phone usage and EMR.

Analysis of awareness of mobile phone hazards

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The behavioral analysis of the smartphone usage revealed that 70.4% of the study participants use smartphone longer than intended and 66.5% of the study participants are engaged for longer duration with smartphone. Nearly 57.7% of the study participants exercise control using their phones only for specific important functions. More number of study participants (58.2%) felt uncomfortable without mobile and were not able to withstand not having a smartphone, feeling discomfort with running out of battery (73.8%), felt anxious if not browsing through their favorite smartphone application (41.1%), and 50.4% of the study participants declared that they would never quit using smartphones even though their daily lifestyles were being affected by it. The study also revealed another important finding that 74.3% of smartphone users are feeling dependency on the use of smartphone. The addiction behavior analysis data of mobile phone are summarized in Table 4 .

Addiction behavior analysis of mobile phone

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The study results also suggest that female participants were having more awareness than male participants ( P < 0.001) [ Table 5a ] and were more dependent on smartphones than male participants ( P < 0.05) [ Table 5b ]. Female participants were ready to quit using smartphones, if it affected daily lifestyle compared with male participants ( P < 0.05) [ Table 5b ]. Habituation of mobile phone use and addiction behavior were compared between both genders of the study participants and are summarized in Table 5a and andb, b , respectively.

Comparison of habituation of mobile phone usage between genders

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Comparison of addiction behavior between genders

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A total of 297 participants were having accommodation in hostel, among them 39.6% of the study participants checked their mobile phone on an average of 21–30 times, a day, and 11.7% of the study participants checked their mobile phone more than 30 times a day. A total of 112 participants have accommodation in home, among them 28.6% of the study participants checked their mobile phone 21–30 times a day, and 13.4% of the study participants checked their mobile phone more than 30 times a day.

A total of 66.1% of participants having accommodation in home use their phones longer than intended, whereas 71.8% of participants having accommodation in hostel are using phone longer than intended. Forty-one (36.6%) and 109 (36.6%) participants from home and hotel checked mobile phone in-between sleep, respectively. About 67.9% of participants having accommodation in home felt dependent on mobile and it was the same for participants having accommodation in hostel (76.5%).

The study results suggest that a significant number of the participants had addiction to mobile phone usage, but were not aware on it, as mobile phones have become an integral part of life. No significant differences were found on addiction behavior between the participants residing in hostel and homes. Mobile phone abuse is rising as an important issue among the world population including physical problems such as eye problems, muscular pain, and psychological problem such as tactile and auditory delusions.[ 13 ] Along with mobile phone, availability of Wi-Fi facility in residence place and work premises also increases mobile phone dependence. The continuous and constant usage of mobile phone reduces intellectual capabilities and work efficacy. A study conducted in Chinese population (160 million out of the total 1.3 billion people) showed that people affected by mobile phone dependence have difficulty in focusing on work and are unsociable, eccentric, and use phones in spite of facing hazards or having knowledge of harmful effects of this form of electromagnetic pollution.[ 14 ]

The statement “I will never quit using my smartphone even though my daily lifestyles are affected by it” was statistically significant ( P = 0.0229). This points to a trend of mobile phone addiction among the respondents. This finding was discussed by Salehan and Negahban. They stated that this trend is due to the fast growth in the use of online social networking services (SNS). Extensive use of technology can lead to addiction. The use of SNS mobile applications is a significant predictor of mobile addiction. Their result showed that the use of SNS mobile applications is affected by both SNS network size and SNS intensity of the user. It has implications for academia as well as governmental and non-for-profit organizations regarding the effect of mobile phones on individual's and public health.[ 15 ] The health risks associated with mobile phones include increased chances of low self-esteem, anxiety or depression, bullying, eye strain and “digital or mobile phone thumb,” motor vehicle accidents, nosocomial infections, lack of sleep, brain tumors and low sperm counts, headache, hearing loss, expense, and dishonesty. The prevalence of cell phone dependence is unknown, but it is prevalent in all cultures and societies and is rapidly rising.[ 16 ] Relapse rate with mobile phone addiction is also high, which may also increase the health risk and affect cognitive function. Sahin et al . studied mobile phone addiction level and sleep quality in 576 university students and found that sleep quality worsens with increasing addiction level.[ 17 ]

The statement “Feeling dependent on the use of smartphone” was also statistically significant ( P = 0.0373). This was also explored by Richard et al . among 404 university students regarding their addiction to smartphones. Half of the respondents were overtly addicted to their phones, while one in five rated themselves totally dependent on their smartphones. Interestingly, higher number of participants felt more secure with their phones than without. Using their phones as an escapism was reported by more than half of the respondents. This study revealed an important fact that people are not actually addicted to their smartphones per se ; however, it is to the entertainment, information, and personal connections that majority of the respondents were addicted to.[ 18 ]

The 2015 statistical report from the British Chiropractic Association concluded that 45% of young people aged 16–24 years suffered with back pain. Long-term usage of smart phone may also cause incurable occipital neuralgia, anxiety and depression, nomophobia, stress, eyesight problem, hearing problems, and many other health issues.[ 19 ]

A study conducted among university students of Shahrekord, Iran, revealed that 21.49% of the participants were addicted to mobile phones, 17.30% participants had depressive disorder, 14.20% participants had obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 13.80% had interpersonal sensitivity.[ 12 ] Nearly 72% of South Korean children aged 11–12 years spend 5.4 h a day on mobile phones, 25% of those children were considered addicts to smartphones.[ 20 ] Thomée et al . collected data from 4156 adults aged between 20 and 24 years and observed no clear association between availability demands or being awakened at night and the mental health outcomes.[ 21 ] Overuse of mobile phone can lead to reduced quality of interpersonal relationships and lack of productivity in daily life. The study outcome from different studies showed variable results on addictive behavior on mobile phone usage. The fact is over-/long-time usage of mobile phone may cause behavioral alteration and induce addictive behavior.

This study suggests that most of the study participants are aware about mobile phone/radiation hazards and many of them developed dependent behavior with smartphone. No significant changes were found on mobile phone dependency behavior between participants having accommodation in house and hostel. One-fourth of the study population is having a feeling of wrist and hand because of smartphone usage which may lead to further physiological and physiological complications.

Limitations

Cluster sampling from a wider population base could have provided a more clear idea regarding the topic of interest
Increasing the time frame and number of study phases was not possible due to logistical issues
Impact of smartphone addiction on sleep pattern could have been studied in-depth.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflflicts of interest.

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Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay: “A Modern-Day Epidemic”

Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay: Mobile phones have become an essential part of modern-day life. It is hard to imagine a world without mobile phones, as they have transformed how we communicate and interact with each other. Mobile phones have made it possible for people to stay connected with each other, access information, and complete tasks from anywhere, at any time. However, excessive use of mobile phones has become a major concern in recent years, as it can have several negative effects on individuals and society. In this essay, we will discuss the impact of excessive use of mobile phones, reasons why people tend to use their mobile phones excessively, and strategies to limit mobile phone use.

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Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay

In this blog Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay, we include About Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay, in 100, 200, 250, and 300 words. Also cover Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay for classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and up to the 12th class and also for kids, children and students. You can read more Essay Writing in 10 lines, and about sports, events, occasions, festivals, etc… About Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay is available in different languages. Excessive use of mobile phone essay, the following features are explained in the given manner.

The Impact Of Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones

Excessive use of mobile phones can have several negative effects on individuals and society. One of the most common negative effects of excessive mobile phone use is addiction. Mobile phone addiction is a psychological disorder in which an individual becomes excessively dependent on their mobile phone, to the point where it interferes with their daily life.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 54% of US teenagers say they spend too much time on their mobile phones, and 52% of US adults say they have tried to cut back on their mobile phone use. Addiction can have a significant impact on an individual’s mental and physical health, and can lead to social isolation, depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems.
Another negative effect of excessive mobile phone use is social isolation. When individuals spend too much time on their mobile phones, they may miss out on social interactions with others, which can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, social isolation is associated with a higher risk of mortality, and can lead to several physical and mental health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and depression.
Excessive mobile phone use can also have a negative impact on sleep. Blue light emitted from mobile phones can interfere with the body’s natural circadian rhythm, making it difficult for individuals to fall asleep at night. In addition, the constant notifications and alerts from mobile phones can disrupt sleep and lead to sleep disturbances.

According to a study by the National Sleep Foundation, 90% of Americans use their mobile phones in the hour before bedtime, and 35% of Americans say their sleep is disturbed by their mobile phones. Excessive mobile phone use can also lead to physical health problems. Holding a mobile phone for extended periods can lead to neck pain, shoulder pain, and back pain, which can eventually lead to chronic pain. In addition, the blue light emitted from mobile phones can cause eye strain and headaches.

The Impact Of Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones

Reasons For Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones

There are several reasons why people tend to use their mobile phones excessively. One of the most common reasons is boredom. When individuals have nothing else to do, they may turn to their mobile phones for entertainment or distraction. In addition, mobile phones provide easy access to social media, which can be a source of entertainment and social interaction.

Another reason for excessive mobile phone use is stress. When individuals are stressed, they may turn to their mobile phones as a way to escape from their problems. Mobile phones provide easy access to social media, games, and other distractions, which can help individuals cope with stress temporarily.
FOMO (fear of missing out) is another reason for excessive mobile phone use. When individuals see their friends and family members posting on social media, they may feel like they are missing out on something important, which can lead to a compulsive need to check their mobile phones regularly.
Addiction is another reason for excessive mobile phone use. When individuals become addicted to their mobile phones, they may feel a compulsive need to check their phones constantly, even when there is no real reason to do so. Addiction can have a significant impact on an individual’s mental and physical health, as well as their relationships with others.

How to Limit Mobile Phone Use While mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives, it is essential to limit our use of them to avoid the negative effects of excessive mobile phone use. Here are some strategies to limit mobile phone use:

Set boundaries: Set specific times during the day when you will use your mobile phone, and avoid using it outside of those times. For example, you can decide to only use your mobile phone for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening.
Use apps to track usage: Several apps are available that can help you track your mobile phone usage. These apps can provide insight into how much time you spend on your phone each day and can help you set goals to limit your usage.
Find alternative activities: Instead of using your mobile phone for entertainment, try finding alternative activities that do not involve technology. For example, you can read a book, go for a walk, or spend time with friends and family.
Turn off notifications: Constant notifications and alerts from your mobile phone can be distracting and can lead to compulsive checking. Turn off notifications for non-essential apps to avoid unnecessary distractions.
Use your phone for essential tasks only: Reserve your mobile phone for essential tasks, such as making phone calls, sending messages, or checking emails. Avoid using your phone for non-essential tasks, such as browsing social media or playing games.

Conclusion on Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay

In conclusion, excessive use of mobile phones can have several negative effects on individuals and society. It is essential to limit our mobile phone use to avoid addiction, social isolation, sleep disturbance, and physical health problems. By setting boundaries, using apps to track usage, finding alternative activities, turning off notifications, and using our phones for essential tasks only, we can find a balance between staying connected and avoiding the negative effects of excessive mobile phone use. It is up to us to take responsibility for our mobile phone use and make changes to limit our usage for the benefit of our mental and physical health and our relationships with others.

Also Read: Advantages And Disadvantages Of Mobile Phones Essay 250 Words

Excessive Use Of Mobile Phones Essay (FAQ’S)

Question 1. What are the harmful effects of excessive use of mobile phones?

Excessive use of mobile phones can have harmful effects on an individual’s physical health, including eye strain, headaches, and neck pain.
It can also lead to addiction, social isolation, sleep disturbance, and decreased academic or work performance.
Additionally, excessive mobile phone use can lead to increased risk of distracted driving accidents and decreased face-to-face communication skills.

Question 2. How are smartphones affecting our life?

Smartphones have become an integral part of our daily lives, and they have both positive and negative effects on our lives.
On one hand, smartphones have made it easier for us to stay connected with friends and family, access information, and perform tasks.
On the other hand, excessive smartphone use can lead to addiction, social isolation, sleep disturbance, decreased productivity, and decreased face-to-face communication skills.
Additionally, smartphones can impact our physical health, including eye strain and neck pain, and can contribute to distracted driving accidents.

Question 3. How mobile phones are harmful to students?

Mobile phones can be harmful to students in several ways. Excessive mobile phone use can lead to distraction and decreased academic performance.
It can also contribute to decreased physical activity and sedentary behavior, which can negatively impact health.
Additionally, the use of mobile phones in the classroom can be disruptive to the learning environment and can contribute to social isolation and decreased face-to-face communication skills.

Question 4. How mobile phones are harmful to students?

Smartphone addiction can have several disadvantages, including decreased productivity and academic or work performance.
It can also lead to social isolation and decreased face-to-face communication skills, as well as increased risk of physical health problems such as eye strain, neck pain, and disrupted sleep patterns. Additionally, smartphone addiction can lead to distracted driving and other safety risks.

Question 5. Are mobile phones harmful to youngsters?

Mobile phones can be harmful to youngsters in several ways. Excessive mobile phone use can lead to addiction, which can negatively impact academic performance, social skills, and physical health.
It can also contribute to social isolation and decreased face-to-face communication skills, as well as increased risk of distracted driving accidents.
Additionally, the use of mobile phones can expose youngsters to potential online dangers, such as cyber bullying and inappropriate content.

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