A new survey of both parents and teens explores how families navigate the issues of smartphone usage, with some of the results more surprising than others.
Chief among the unsurprising findings is that around 40% of families have repeated arguments about how much time teens spend on their phones …
Teen screen time
Pew Research found that 10% of respondents said they often argue about this, while an additional 28% said that this happens “sometimes.”
Three-quarters of parents consider the matter an important one, with 15% describing it as a top priority issue. When it comes to actually setting screen time limits, parents were almost evenly split between those who do and don’t, but this appears to mainly relate to the age of the teens. Some 62% of parents set limits for teens aged 13 and 14, while this drops to 37% for 15-17 year olds.
However, some teens want to limit their own screen time, with 38% feeling they spend too much time on their phones.
Parent screen time
Many parents acknowledge that they also spend too much time on their phones, with 47% agreeing with this statement. Some 31% of them admit to being distracted by their phone when having a conversation with their teen.
However, it seems that they aren’t aware of the full extent of this, as 46% of teens report these distracted conversations.
Parental snooping of teen phones
Exactly 50% of parents say that they sometimes look through their teen’s smartphone, and 43% of teens say that they know this happens.
This is again age-related: parental snooping hits 64% for 13 and 14 year olds, but drops to 41% for 15-17 year olds.
Teen assessment of smartphone impact
70% of teens say the benefits of smartphones outweigh the harms. In particular, they say phones help them pursue their hobbies and interests, be creative, and do well in school. On the flip side, they think smartphone usage makes it harder to develop social skills.
When asked how they feel when they don’t have their phones, more teens described positive feelings than negative ones. The top answers were “happy” and “peaceful,” with far smaller numbers reporting they felt anxious, upset, or lonely.
You can read the detailed report here.
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