Don't Be Misled by the Study Touting the Benefits of Smartphones for Kids

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness has been on the NYTimes Bestseller list for an entire year now, since its release last March. The book primarily examines the ill effects that social media has on kids and teenagers, and it has actually triggered bipartisan legislation at the state, local, and district levels regarding smartphone use in school.

I read it. There are some compelling case studies that many of us parents have seen mirrored in the lives of teens in our communities. But as our readers vociferously argued, there are plenty of flaws in Haidt’s reasoning, too, and every generation manages to survive (and thrive) in the face of new technological advances. Fair enough.

Personally, my kids were allowed smartphones when they started middle school. However, they’re not allowed to use social media. Ever, if I can help it. However, there’s a new study out of Florida that some people are touting as proof that smartphones are good for teens. Here’s Taylor Lorenz in her latest newsletter:

A big new long-term study from the University of South Florida has found that kids with smartphones report higher well-being than those without smartphones. This is in line with an overwhelming amount of previous reporting on this issue, which shows that not only is there no actual link between smartphone use and poor mental health (despite what moral panic political actors like Jonathan Haidt like to claim), but smartphone use keeps kids connected and happy.

Of course, this study got almost zero media coverage because it doesn’t feed the debunked pseudoscience that people in power and groups like the Heritage Foundation are pushing related to smartphones and social media.

Lorenz then reports on the benefits of smartphones, according to the study, which shows that kids with smartphones report better well-being, exercise more, hang out with friends more, score better in self-esteem, and are less likely to be cyberbullied.

Um, no sh**. Smartphones are how teenagers communicate. It’s how they arrange hangouts, learn about exercise (or even skincare) routines, and stay in contact with their communities. If they compared kids in the ’80s who had landlines with those who did not, I guarantee you that the kids with landlines reported higher well-being than those who did not have landlines.

Also, many kids who don’t have cell phones don’t have them because they can’t afford them, and class almost certainly plays a role in social alienation and cyberbullying. Even Haidt, in his book, suggests that, while it’s not as good as face-to-face hangouts, texting, talking, and especially Facetiming with friends on smartphones is the next best thing.

Haidt has a less serious problem with smartphones and more with social media. That “moral panic” is not about texting or chatting on phones. It’s about being consumed by social media—you know, the algorithmically driven platforms owned by billionaires competing for the attention of our children?

While Lorenz doesn’t report it in her newsletter, the study says that the dangers lie not in smartphone use but in how they are used and, specifically, the danger to mental well-being posed by social media.

Smartphones alone don’t appear to be the culprit in the adolescent mental health crisis, at least not among the adolescents we sampled. More than any other single measure, the act of publicly posting or sharing things online was associated with adverse outcomes. Kids who post publicly online — especially those who post often — were more likely to report moderate or severe symptoms of depression, and to report severe symptoms of anxiety, compared to kids who don’t post publicly.

Heavy social media use, with or without posting, however, appears to be associated with some harms. Kids who use social media daily or multiple times per day were more likely to report that technology impairs their daily lives compared to lighter users of social media. Heavy social media users were more likely than light users to say they don’t get enough sleep because they’re on their phone late at night, that they feel restless or irritated when they can’t check their phone, and that they’d rather spend more time online than hang out with people in-person

So, yes: Smartphones are fine. Social media? Not so great. In fact, spending too much time on social media may lead to adults writing things like this, which are actual words written by Lorenz in her last newsletter:

The concept of a meme depression could not have happened without rampant Viralflation over the past few years. The massive proliferation of meme-based content and the inflation of view counts short form video apps paired with algorithmic feeds has produced a relentless fire hose of viral content.

This inflation contributes to a relentless demand for fresh content, pressuring creators to produce new material continuously, or to identify new memes or memeable creators/people to stay current and at the top of people’s feeds. The rapid consumption cycle means that memes and trends have shorter lifespans, leading to quicker burnout among both creators and consumers. The meme drought of March 2025 can be seen as a manifestation of this exhaustion, where the internet’s insatiable appetite for novelty led to a temporary creative standstill.

That’s a lot of words to say that the internet’s demand for viral content has led to creator and consumer burnout and, consequently, a meme drought. However, I will readily concede that few are better than Lorenz in surfacing Internet trends, particularly those that millennials and Xers would otherwise have no reason to encounter. She’s very good at her job, even if the above paragraph gave me hives. You can subscribe to Lorenz’s Substack here.

Instead of cherry-picking, you can also read the complete study here.