Do Smartphones Help Cause Stress Among Kids?

We now live in a world where almost everybody owns a smartphone. Indeed, smartphones have now become an integral part of our daily living, whether it is for work, for entertainment, or even for fitness and health. 

But despite the many benefits that they have provided for people living in the 21st century, smartphones may also have negative effects on our lives, at least according to some circles. One notable British child psychologist, Julie Lynn Evans, even believes that smartphones may be causing people, especially kids, to be more stressful. 

Through an interview conducted by the Telegraph, Lynn Evans shared that there is a growing number of kids that come to see her displaying signs of depression, anorexia (and other eating disorders), and suicidal behavior. Lynn Evans noted that almost all of these patients’ suffering appear to have something to do with smartphones.

Lynn Evans admits that it may be too early to make generalizations. But it is to her opinion that the easy availability of smartphones may have contributed in quickening the pace and the degree in which mental illness occurs in young people everywhere.

Lynn Evans further cites the increased instance of kids visiting anorexia sites and pornographic sites on the Internet. She also noted that frequency in which cyberbullying is happening, and it is far more a rampant activity among young people compared to adults.

It is possible that because interaction has been heightened, due in part to social media and with the ease in which kids can get access to social media, young people nowadays are more pressured to respond immediately or post a comment quickly. According to Lynn Evans, such instant reactions are often fueled by impulse rather than thought, and in some cases, the results may not be pleasant. 

This is especially crucial for kids who are, after all, trying to figure out their emotions and how to deal with the reactions of fellow young people and adults. And they are not getting any wider space to sort it all out. It is true that the Internet has opened up a lot of information for people, but the downside is, sometimes we are not even sure anymore about how open we should be, or how private we should keep our online identities.

And in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the lines get blurrier and blurrier, especially for kids, the demographic who happen to use social media the most. As suggested by Lynn Evans, the kids of today may be getting too desperate to get "likes" that it is affecting their mental health.