Good luck getting anyone these days to put down their phone. If you think adults have it bad, you should see just how bad the teenagers of the smartphone generation have it. According to a recent survey, 50% of teens say they’re addicted to their smartphones.
As if that’s not bad enough, here are some other numbers. Some 59% of parents are worried that their kids will be addicted to smartphones. When it comes to responding to texts, 72% of all teens feel like they have to respond immediately. Unsurprisingly, 80% of teens check their phones hourly and 85% of parents say that their teens are distracted by their phones. I’d imagine that number is only worse than everyone thinks, at least depending on who you survey and how they’re feeling that particular day.
“The poll paints a changed portrait of family life in 2016” says James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media. “A significant minority of families seems to be truly struggling to integrate mobile technology in a healthy way. And many concerning behaviors and outcomes are associated with mobile use. The generational gap revealed in the different behaviors of teens and their parents raises the question of whether we may be too quick to label as ‘addiction’ something that is actually a normal adaptation to rapidly and constantly evolving social norms.”
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