Teens’ Heavy Cellphone Use Could Signal Unhappiness, Study Finds
The Los Angeles Times reports on a bogus study:
A survey of 575 South Korean high school students found that the top third of users — students who used their phones more than 90 times a day — frequently did so because they were unhappy or bored. They scored significantly higher on tests measuring depression and anxiety than students who used their phones a more sedate 70 times daily.
So think about that for a moment — 70 versus 90 times a day. Who’s going to notice the difference? A perfect example of something that might have statistical significance, but has absolutely no real-world significance because there is virtually no difference that could be detected between the two numbers by any normal person.
There is some understanding that yes, teens today use IM and cell phones as important methods to communicate with their friends. There is nothing wrong with this, although there is certainly the hint that there is if used too much:
For anxious teens, text messaging can become a substitute for face-to-face communication, DeAntonio said. “You want to be sure that you are not reinforcing social isolation,” he said.
Talking to friends via IM or a cell phone is not, by any objective measurement, a socially isolating behavior. In fact, the exact opposite is true — the more you’re communicating (no matter what the method — the method is unimportant), the less socially isolating you are.
So basically, nothing new here, move along. Hence the reason this was presented at a conference and not published in a journal.
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4 Comments to
“Bogus Teen Cell Phone Study”
I wrote about the same story today and had the same reaction. there is no plausible theoretical link that I could decipher.
That study is crap. Sometimes I think people like that are just against people, especially younger people, using cell phones in general.
cell phones do promote social isolation and it does subsitute face to face interactions. i had to tell the teens that i work with not to contact me via txt message or email. i told them they needed to make an appointment and talk to me face to face. it ended up decreasing our conversations.
I can completely see how cell phones would reduce face-to-face contact. Why get up and go see someone when all you have to do it reach for your phone?
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 25 May 2006
