Smartphones raising a mentally fragile generation

France24 ^ | 13 November 2018 | AFP

[E. Pluribus Unum]

SAN DIEGO (AFP) - San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge sees smartphones and social media as raising an unhappy, compliant "iGen."

QUESTION: What is the iGen?

ANSWER: The iGen is the generation born in 1995 and later, and they're the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. They spend a lot more time online, on social media and playing games, and they spend less time on non-screen activities like reading books, sleeping or seeing their friends in face-to-face interactions.

Those children are growing up more slowly. By the age of 18, they are less likely to have a driver's licence, to work in a paying job, to go out on dates, to drink alcohol or to go out without their parents compared to teens in previous generations.

So iGen's probably the safest generation in history and they like that idea of feeling safe.

Yet, they also have the sense that they are missing out on something. They realize that being on the phone all the time is probably not the best way to live. They don't like it when they're talking to a friend and their friend is looking at their phone.

Many of them have a recognition of the downsides of that type of living as well.

QUESTION: You have researched the behavior and health of millions of teenagers. What have you observed?

ANSWER: Around 2011 and 2012, I started to see more sudden changes to teens, like big increases of teens feeling lonely or left out, or that they could not do anything right, that their life was not useful, which are classic symptoms of depression.

[Bellflower]

I have to wonder at what point would a flicker of desire might ignite in their souls to want to actually live and experience something real. When does emptiness become too great to bear?