The timing of the recent, severe drop in going out and getting together with friends is highly suspicious: it occured right when smartphones became popular and social media use really took off. Time spent with friends in person has been replaced by time spent with friends (and virtual friends) online. “Some kids are too addicted to social media and games to interact with other people that are actually next to them,” explains Kevin. “They make, like, the fake online friends. Some people, like, help cheer you up online, but you don’t really know them, so you can’t really have a deep relationship.”
Let’s All Go Together (or Not)
If you were a teen in the 1980s or 1990s, you probably have memories of walking around the mall with your friends, checking out the gear at Sports Authority or the earrings at Claire’s and then sitting at the tables in the food court. iGen’ers don’t do that as much, either (see Figure 3.3); fewer and fewer teens are meeting their friends at the mall to hang out.
Figure 3.3. Percentage of 8th and 10th graders who go to a shopping mall once a month or more. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
That is at least one reason why so many malls across the country have closed. There’s even a Buzzfeed collection of photos of abandoned malls, capturing images such as the dying plants around a mirrored escalator at the Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio, shuttered in 2013. At the former Cloverleaf Mall in Chesterfield, Virginia, a popcorn cart sits abandoned, the neon “Food Court” sign over it no longer lit. Just down the hallway, dead palm trees are bent in half around an empty fountain in the floor, with broken store displays and other debris around it. Another photo, from the Randall Park Mall in Ohio, features a circular bank of pay phones. At the base, a phone book lies with its pages splayed, roadkill on the information superhighway.
Activity after activity, iGen’ers are less social than Millennials, GenX’ers, and Boomers were at the same age. As we saw in chapter 1, iGen’ers are less likely to go out or to go on dates. They are also less likely to “drive around in a car just for fun”—the activity at the center of teen movies of previous eras such as Dazed and Confused and American Graffiti (see Appendix D). A night at the movies has been a standard teen social activity for generations (what would adolescence be if it didn’t involve some immature throwing of popcorn?), but, as we saw in chapter 2, iGen’ers are less likely to go to movies. iGen teens are less likely to go to bars and nightclubs—even since 1988, when the drinking age was raised to 21 nationwide, the number of high school seniors who went to bars or nightclubs has been cut in half. In 2006, the New York Times documented the new trend of nightclubs for teens (called “starter clubs”), with some for teens under 18. By 2016, however, the Times and other newspapers noted that many dance clubs were closing.
That doesn’t mean teens are always staying at home having wholesome family time. Thirteen-year-old Athena, whom we met in the introduction, told me that she and her friends are often on their phones when they are at home. “I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” she says. “They just say, ‘Okay, okay, whatever,’ while they’re on their phones. They don’t pay attention to their family.” Athena has spent a lot of time by herself lately: after her summer of Netflix, texting, and social media holed up in her room, “my bed has, like, an imprint of my body,” she says. As her summer activities illustrate, there is one activity that iGen’ers do more than their predecessors: they spend more leisure time alone (see Appendix D). Although we can’t say for sure, it’s a good guess that this alone time is being spent online, on social media, streaming video, and texting.
In short: iGen teens are less likely to take part in every single face-to-face social activity measured across four data sets of three different age groups. These fading interactions include everything from small-group or one-on-one activities such as getting together with friends to larger group activities such as parties. They include activities with no real aim, such as cruising in a car, and those that may have more of a goal in mind, such as going to see a movie. They include activities that might be replaced by online convenience, such as going to a shopping mall, and those that can’t be easily replicated online, such as going out with friends.
Instead, they are communicating electronically. For example, see Figure 3.4. Its conclusion is inescapable: the Internet has taken over. Teens are Instagramming, Snapchatting, and texting with their friends more, and seeing them in person less. For iGen’ers, online friendship has replaced offline friendship.
Figure 3.4. Percentage of 12th graders who spend ten or more hours a week online and the percentage average of four in-person social activities. Monitoring the Future, 2006–2015.
Some maintain that all of the uproar over screen time is misplaced; teens are just connecting with their friends online, and the rest of their lives have stayed the same. This graph strongly suggests that that is not true: with the advent of social media and smartphones, teens’ social lives shifted decisively away from in-person interaction. They spend much less time with their friends in person than teens in previous decades did—about an hour a day less. The lives of teens—and the rest of us—may never be the same again as mobile Internet access puts down deeper and deeper roots in our lives.
Others have argued that social media has not replaced in-person interaction, because the same teens who spend more time on social media also spend more time with their friends in person. However, that says more about variations among teens (the highly social “popular” kids vs. the less social “nerds”) than about shifts over time. It’s not surprising that highly social teens are more social both on social media and in person. But on average, today’s teens are spending less time with each other in person and more time online than teens did five years ago, fundamentally changing the lives of adolescents.
If you’re not an iGen’er, think back to high school: What do you remember the most vividly? Maybe it’s the after-prom party, your first kiss, or the time you and your friends got into trouble at the mall. Chances are it’s something that happened with your friends when your parents weren’t around. Such experiences are less and less common for today’s teens. What will they remember—that funny text exchange they had with their friend? their best selfie? a meme that went viral? Or will they remember the few times they were actually with their friends in person?
Darnell, the 20-year-old college student in Georgia, explicitly connects iGen’ers’ smartphone use with their disinclination to see people in person. “The last generation always wants us to be in person, and a lot of us are not like that,” he says. “We’re more of a technology-based generation. Without my phone I literally would be lost. I have my calendar, I have my email, I’ve researched different things, I’m always reading about something.” Twenty-year-old James, a student at the same college, says it’s just easier to use social media instead of meet up in person. “It’s so tempting to just text someone or to just go on social media and like someone’s photo and comment instead of calling and being, like, ‘Hey, do you want to go and get something to eat?’ That takes planning,” he says.
Even when they do see their friends in person, technology, especially texting, allows iGen to avoid certain social interactions. Henry, 23, likes how texting can get him out of potentially awkward social exchanges. “When I arrive at a friend’s house, instead of knocking on the door and coming face-to-face with his or her roommates or parents, I just text [my friend] saying I have arrived,” he says. It’s easy to imagine Henry pulling over to the curb on a suburban street, sending a quick text as his phone glows, and watching his friend walk across the lawn alone. He gets in, and Henry’s car speeds into the darkness, all other social interactions avoided.
The Screens Go Dark: Mental Health and Happiness
Many people have argued that teens’ communicating with their friends electronically is no big deal—they’re connecting with their friends, so who cares how they do it? In this view, electronic communication is just as good as in-person communication. If
so, it would be just as good for mental health and happiness: teens who communicate via social media and text should be just as happy, be just as likely to dodge loneliness, and be just as likely to avoid depression as teens who see their friends in person or engage in other activities that don’t involve screens.
We can find out if that’s true. Let’s start with happiness. The MtF surveys ask teens how happy they are in general (“very happy,” “pretty happy,” or “not very happy”) and also how much time they spend on various activities during their leisure time, including both screen activities such as social networking sites, texting, and Internet time and nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction, exercise, and print media. Thus we can see which activities create joy and which are more likely to lead to misery.
The results could not be clearer: teens who spend more time on screen activities (the black bars in Figure 3.5) are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time on nonscreen activities (the gray bars) are more likely to be happy. There’s not a single exception: all screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness.
Figure 3.5. Relative risk of being unhappy based on time spent on screen (black bars) and nonscreen (gray bars) activities, 8th graders. Monitoring the Future, 2013–2015.
For example, 8th graders who spend ten or more hours a week on social media are 56% more likely to be unhappy than those who don’t. Admittedly, ten hours a week is a lot—so what about those who spend merely six hours a week or more on social media? They are still 47% more likely to say they are unhappy. But the opposite is true of in-person social interaction: those who spend more time with their friends in person are 20% less likely to be unhappy (listed as –.20 on the chart; see Appendix A for more on relative risk). If you were going to give advice for a happy life based on this graph, it would be straightforward: put down the phone, turn off the computer or iPad, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen.
These analyses can’t unequivocally prove that screen time causes unhappiness; it’s also possible that unhappy teens spend more time online. However, three recent studies suggest that screen time (particularly social media use) does indeed cause unhappiness. One study asked college students with Facebook pages to complete short surveys on their phones over the course of two weeks—they’d get a text message with a link five times a day and report on their mood and how much they’d used Facebook. The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they later felt. However, feeling unhappy did not lead to more Facebook use. Facebook use caused unhappiness, but unhappiness did not cause Facebook use.
Another study of adults found the same thing: the more people used Facebook, the lower their mental health and life satisfaction at the next assessment. But after they interacted with their friends in person, their mental health and life satisfaction improved. A third study randomly assigned 1,095 Danish adults to stop using Facebook for a week (the experimental group) or to continue to use Facebook as usual (the control group). At the end of the week, those who had taken a break from Facebook were happier, less lonely, and less depressed than those who had used Facebook as usual (and by fairly substantial margins—36% fewer were lonely, 33% fewer were depressed, and 9% more were happy). Those who stayed off Facebook were also less likely to feel sad, angry, or worried. Because the participants were randomly assigned to conditions, that rules out the explanation that people who are already unhappy, lonely, or depressed use Facebook more—as a true experiment, it shows that Facebook use causes unhappiness, loneliness, and depression.
The risk of unhappiness due to social media use is the highest for the youngest teens. Eighth graders who spent ten or more hours a week on social networking sites were 56% more likely to be unhappy, compared to 47% for 10th graders and 20% for 12th graders (see Figure 3.6). As vulnerable middle schoolers, 8th graders are still developing their identities and are often struggling with body image issues. Add in cyberbullying online, and it’s a toxic mix. As teens get older, they are less likely to bully one another and more confident in themselves, protecting them somewhat from the slings and arrows of teen social media experience.
Figure 3.6. Relative risk of being unhappy from spending ten or more hours a week on social networking sites, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. Monitoring the Future, 2013–2015.
Perhaps there are still some benefits to social media. At least in theory, social media sites are about connecting with others. Maybe using social media doesn’t lead to happiness, but it might still help teens feel more included, more surrounded by friends, and less alone. That’s certainly what social networking sites promise. A recent commercial for Facebook Live advises, “If you have more to say, take out your phone and press this [Facebook icon], tap this [video camera icon] and go live. Now you’re not alone. Your friends are here to listen.” In other words, social media can help us feel less alone and surround us with friends at every moment. If that’s true, teens who spend a lot of time on social media should be less lonely, and social media should be just as good as in-person social interaction when it comes to feeling less lonely.
Unfortunately for the always online iGen, that turns out not to be true. Teens who visit social networking sites every day are actually more likely to agree “I often feel lonely,” “I often feel left out of things,” and “I often wish I had more good friends” (see Figure 3.7; there are fewer activities on this list than for happiness because the loneliness measure is asked on fewer versions of the questionnaire). In contrast, those who spend time with their friends in person or who play sports are less lonely.
Figure 3.7. Relative risk of loneliness based on time spent on screen (black bars) and nonscreen (gray bars) activities, 10th graders. Monitoring the Future, 2009–2015.
Just as for happiness, the results are clear: screen activities are linked to more loneliness, and nonscreen activities are linked to less loneliness. Teens who spend a lot of time with their friends in person are much less likely to be lonely (with their risk cut nearly in half), and those who visit social networking sites every day or nearly every day are 11% more likely to be lonely. It’s nonscreen activities that help teens feel less alone, not social media. The loneliest teens are those who spend more time on social media and less time with their friends in person. If social media time reduces in-person social interaction, it may lead to more loneliness through that less direct route as well.
Just as with happiness, it could be that lonely teens use social media more. However, two of the studies mentioned previously both showed that social media use caused loneliness to increase. In addition, the correlation between social media use and loneliness appears across all demographic groups: boys and girls, Hispanics, whites, and blacks, and those both lower and higher in socioeconomic status.
“At school, people are quieter,” confides Olivia, an 18-year-old high school senior. “They all are on their technology ignoring each other. I am dissatisfied with my life because a lot of my friends are addicted to their phones—they seem like they do not want to talk to me because they are on their phones.”
Olivia sounds not just lonely but sad, even depressed. Many parents and educators are concerned that teens who are constantly on their phones might be setting themselves up for depression and other mental health issues. They worry that spending that much time in front of a screen can’t possibly be healthy.
We can find out if those worries are well founded or not. MtF measures symptoms of depression with six items: agreeing with “Life often seems meaningless,” “The future often seems hopeless,” “I feel that I can’t do anything right,” “I feel that my life is not very useful,” and disagreeing with “I enjoy life as much as anyone” and “It feels good to be alive.” A questionnaire like this can’t diagnose clinical-level depression—that must be done by a professional using a structured interview—but it does measure classic symptoms of depression, including hopelessness, lack of meaning, and loss of interest in life.
Once again, the split between screen and nonscreen activities is unmistakable: teens who spend more time on screens are more likely to be depressed, and those who spend more time on nonscreen activities are less likely to be depressed (see Figure 3.8). Eighth graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27%, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework cut their risk significantly. The teens who are the most active on social media are also those who are most in danger of developing depression, a mental health issue that devastates millions of US teens each year.
Figure 3.8. Relative risk of high depressive symptoms based on time spent on screen (black bars) and nonscreen (gray bars) activities, 8th graders, 2009–2015.
Younger teens are more at risk for depression connected to heavy social media use. For 10th graders, social media use carries about even odds for depression (see Appendix D). At the very least, social networking sites do not spark joy or protect against depression the way nonscreen activities do; they don’t help and, especially among younger teens, actually hurt.
Ben, 18, lives in Champaign, Illinois, not far from the flagship campus of the University of Illinois. When I reach him one late-August morning, he’s just four days away from beginning his freshman year at a private college in the Northeast. He’s a bookworm who is happy to be heading to a place that takes academics seriously. We chat about the challenges of packing to go away to college and then turn to the topic of social media. “I got my first Facebook [page] at 13,” he says—the minimum age set by the site. “Of course, everyone else already had one.” At that age, he says, social media was a fraught experience. “When I posted stuff, I was always incredibly anxious. I would sit there refreshing to make sure there were likes and stuff,” he says. “Now my relationship with social media is pretty different. I definitely have more self-confidence, and as a result I sort of care less what people think of my social media. And as a result I basically don’t use it.” He has hit on three truths about social media and teens: their effects on mental health seem to be strongest for the youngest teens, social media can inflame anxiety among those who are susceptible, and those who truly crave the “hit” of likes are often those who are the most vulnerable to mental health issues.
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