A recent poll of teens showed that one in two adolescents feel they’re addicted to their mobile devices, while 59% of parents were concerned about their teens’ time on phones.
The study was to learn more about the affect of cell phones and mobile devices on child-parent relationships. Common Sense Media went through 1,200 interviews with children and their parents between the ages of 12 to 18.
In addition to the previous statistics, they also discovered:
- 72% of teens couldn’t resist replying to texts or social media messages immediately after receiving them
- 80% checked their phones hourly
- 85% of parents interviewed said their kids were consistently distracted by mobile devices
“The poll paints a changed portrait of family life in 2016” says Common Sense Media’s CEO James P. Steyer in the report. “A significant minority of families seems to be truly struggling to integrate mobile technology in a healthy way. And many concerning behaviors and outcomes are associated with mobile use.”
But it’s not doomsday for family relationships either; in fact, this may just be an evolution of a normal family relationship.
“The generational gap revealed in the different behaviors of teens and their parents raises the question of whether we may be too quick to label as “addiction” something that is actually a normal adaptation to rapidly and constantly evolving social norms,” Steyer said.
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