Adolescent Smartphone Use

A new study by Stanford Medicine (published in Child Development) found no meaningful association between the well-being of children and the age at which they acquire their first smartphones.

This is a surprising result in that many earlier studies—and common suspicions predicated on the dissemination of those studies—suggest that young people suffer a range of serious and minor psychological and physical injuries if they acquire such devices too early, the theory being that engagement with modern smartphones (and the digital worlds to which they grant access) can mess with their development in detrimental ways.