UC Riverside

Both scientists and laypeople have become increasingly concerned about smartphones, especially their associated digital media (e.g., email, news, gaming, and dating apps) and social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat). Recent correlational research that relies heavily on self-reported time estimates links substantial declines in Gen Z well-being to digital and social media use, yet other work suggests the effects are small and unnoteworthy. Such mixed results call for additional research—both investigations comparing self-report vs. objective indicators of screen time and experiments to disentangle correlation from causation and better elucidate the strength and direction of effects.

How accurate is self-report? Are smartphones making young people unhappy? I aimed to address these questions in two studies. In Study 1, I recruited undergraduate students (N = 414; 98.3% Gen Z) and examined correlations among psychosocial well-being and screen time. Overall, most participants were unable to accurately estimate how much time they spent on their smartphones and social media. The more participants objectively used their smartphones, the less happy they were. However, some smartphone apps were associated with greater well-being (e.g., Camera, News, Snapchat), some were associated with lower well-being (e.g., Facebook, Reddit, Tinder), and some were not meaningfully linked to well-being (e.g., Clock, Hulu, WhatsApp).

Study 2 involved a pre-registered experimental deprivation study with a subset of the same undergraduate students from Study 1 (N = 338; 97.9% Gen Z), who were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) restrict digital media use, (2) restrict social media use, (3) restrict water use (active control), or (4) restrict nothing (measurement-only control). Relative to controls, participants restricting digital media reported a variety of benefits, including higher life satisfaction, mindfulness, autonomy, competence, and self-esteem, and reduced loneliness and stress. In contrast, those assigned to restrict social media reported relatively few benefits (increased mindfulness) and even some costs (more negative emotion).