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No evidence for smartphone depression

The conclusion that smartphones have a negative effect on the mood of young people is often unfounded. A researcher from Radboud University concludes that it is necessary to look specifically at what young people do in their screen time. Her research shows that the habit among young people of reaching for their mobile phones does not necessarily lead to mental and physical ailments. On the contrary, it can even be stress-reducing.

‘In recent years, smartphones labeled the culprit behind numerous mental and physical ailments, from loneliness to boredom to addiction. But such conclusions are irresponsible, as long as we don’t look more specifically at what people do on their smartphones.’ That is what Nastasia Griffioen of Radboud University in Nijmegen sets research that was published in Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

The researcher of the psychopathology department of the behavioral sciences Radboud Institute states that there are major differences in the way young adults use their smartphones. The motivations for those activities and the feelings that the use of the smartphone evoke also differ enormously. ‘There is no such thing as one form of smartphone use,’ says Griffioen. For the study, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 were left alone and secretly monitored for a period of ten minutes.

Griffioen: ‘About eighty percent of the group picked up the telephone almost immediately. It really is a kind of automatism for many people. But almost every young person we monitored had a completely different pattern of smartphone behavior. Some switched between different apps 21 times in those ten minutes. Others only used one or two apps. Some were mainly busy with messaging apps, others were mainly browsing.’

Whatsapp and motivation

“Getting social media involved is often ‘a kind of’ automatism'”

After the recording period, the researchers discussed the footage with the young people, in order to get a clear picture of the underlying motivations and emotions. ‘We noticed that young people like to talk about it, and that yielded really unique insights,’ explains Griffioen.

For example, she saw that young people have specific motivations when they browse or open Whatsapp. For example, they want to know the weather or quickly schedule an appointment with friends. The people who took to social media indicate that it is a ‘sort of’ automatism for them or that it stems from boredom.

Griffioen: ‘Nevertheless, in the emotional scores of the various smartphone activities, we see no difference between things that are done out of boredom or with a specific goal. That suggests that doing something out of boredom or habit might not be so bad. For example, we know from other research that habitual behaviors can reduce stress and anxiety for people.’

Social media

Another, according to the researcher, ‘unique’ insight concerns the use of social media. It is often thought that social media is mainly disadvantageous due to all kinds of social factors, such as unnecessary comparison with others. She discovered, however, that negative emotional scores for social media activities almost never involve a social factor. This often involved a negative feeling due to football results or news.

Positive emotional scores due to social media activities are often linked to social contacts, such as reading good news from someone in your circle of friends, concludes Griffioen.

Screen time analysis says little

The researcher: ‘These conclusions may seem obvious, but both in practice and in many scientific studies, all forms of smartphone use are often lumped together.’ She sees that there is a lot of difference between the reason young people reach for their phones and what they do on it. What it can release also differs. “After thorough analyses, we know that there is virtually no direct link between smartphone or social media use and well-being. It’s time to broaden the discussion.’

In the future, Griffioen wants to develop tools that allow young people to better reflect on what they do on their smartphone and why they do it. “This research makes it clear to us that no young person is the same and that if you have a clear picture of what technology does to you, you can also get more out of future interactions.”

‘Although you don’t see much of it on the outside, smartphones for young adults are a portal to a world full of possibilities. It’s time we started to better understand what their journey through that world looks like’, concludes the researcher.

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