Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?

The Impact of Smartphones on Youth The advent of the smartphone marks a major paradigm shift in the way of life for people around the globe. Nowadays, teens do not know life without the comfort of their glowing rectangles. They are constantly staring at a screen, whether it be at home, in school, or with friends. In the article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” psychology professor Jean Twenge elaborates on how smartphones have impacted the generation of kids who do not know life without the Internet, also known as iGen. The pivotal impact of smartphones is evident in the statistic that “three out of four” American teens owns an iPhone, regardless of ethnicity or social class. Ultimately, smartphones are hindering the development

There is a direct correlation between happiness and screen time. According to Twenge, “teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy” whereas teens “who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.” Teens spend their time scrolling through social media feeds and living vicariously through photos and videos. However, this translates to loneliness in many teens. Twenge details how social media tends to exacerbate feelings of being left out, because teens constantly post what they are doing on social media sites. This loneliness directly correlates with the release of the iPhone in 2007. The graph illustrating how teens are “more likely to feel lonely” shows a sharp upward trend in loneliness and feeling left out in the years after the iPhone was released. Teens are depressed because they are too connected to their phones. Instead of communicating with their friends face-to-face, teens choose to connect via the Internet. When they do finally get together to hang out, instead of playing games or enjoying the outdoors, teens are absorbed in their phones. It is shocking how teens are able to block out everyone and everything around them and completely focus on the screen in front of them. This ignorance creates strained relationships with parents, or frustration at

Personal interactions have been replaced by virtual interactions, and while smartphones enable users to connect with each other and communicate, they also hinder the development of social skills in teens. As a result of constantly being on their smartphones, teens lack the social skills necessary to succeed in the future. They struggle with communicating face-to-face, and when they do, their vocabulary is weak, including words like “yep,” “whatever,” and “duh.” When Twenge asked Athena if she was good at volleyball, she replied with a mere “yep.” This brevity in Athena’s speech reflects a larger problem with teens, for they fail to initiate conversation and be engaged when someone is speaking to them. As iGen grows older and is introduced to the workforce, it seems as though they will struggle with job interviews and being presentable overall. Communication is key to being successful in the workforce, and a lack of communication can result in grave consequences for individuals and businesses. Furthermore, the teens of iGen do not know how to express emotions. Ironically, these growing teens “know just the right emoji for a situation,” but not the right physical emotion. This sad reality clearly illustrates how smartphones are impacting cognitive and communicative development in today’s teens. For example, when Athena was spending