Despite fears that constant phone scrolling harms mental health, new research shows that smartphones have almost no measurable effect on mood, challenging one of today’s most persistent digital-age myths.
Study: Smartphone use in a large US adult population: Temporal associations between objective measures of usage and mental well-being. Image credit: PeopleImages/Shutterstock.com
A new study published in PNAS claims that smartphone use over 4 weeks has a negligible or minimal impact on mood and mental wellbeing in adults.
Background
Smartphones have become integral to everyday activities, including communication, navigation, entertainment, shopping, social networking, and finance and health monitoring. Approximately 84% of the global population uses smartphones, and in the U.S., about 85% of adults own smartphones.
Several studies have highlighted the potential negative impact of smartphone use on mental health. However, most of these studies have analyzed self-reported data, often lacking validity and precision. Other possible limitations of these studies include small sample size, lack of population diversity, and inclusion of only a specific type of smartphone usage pattern.
To address these limitations, the current study investigated normative usage patterns and the temporal associations between smartphone use and mental wellbeing.
Study design
The study analyzed 250,000 days of smartphone usage data from a diverse group of 10,099 U.S. adults across 50 states. Objective measures of smartphone use and subjective measures (self-reported) of each participant's mental well-being (mood) were recorded over four weeks.
This large-scale longitudinal data was analyzed to examine the bidirectional associations between social and non-social media smartphone application use and mood changes. The impact of demographic factors, such as age and gender, on this association was also analyzed.
Key findings
The study reported that smartphone use for social media or non-social media applications over four weeks has a negligible impact on mood changes among US adults. Both positive and negative mood outcomes were observed among participants using smartphones.
Among various smartphone applications, social media use showed a small negative association with mood among younger adults, compared to that among older participants. However, this effect was not observed across the entire study population and was not longitudinally significant. The use of social media applications showed an association with lower mood among younger participants. However, when participants’ use of social media applications was compared with their personal baseline, a significant positive impact on mood was observed.
The use of non-social media applications was significantly associated with lower moods only when usage levels exceeded the average compared to other participants, while higher usage relative to one’s own baseline was associated with a more positive mood.
Study significance
This large-scale study involving more than 10,000 diverse adult participants finds only a minimal effect of smartphone use on mental wellbeing. Although the study finds some significant associations of social and non-social media use on mood changes, the effects are very small and of negligible practical significance. For example, the models suggested that unrealistically large increases in app use would be required to produce even a one-point change in mood rating.
Besides smartphone use, the study has explored the mediating effects of various demographic factors. The findings reveal that younger adults, females, and genderqueer individuals use social media more and experience lower self-reported mood. These findings indicate that age and gender play a far more substantial role in predicting mood than smartphone use.
The study has analyzed the mood-changing effects of both social and non-social media applications. The findings indicate that social media applications do not influence mood changes among participants. Regarding non-social media applications, the study reveals that participants who use non-social applications more than others may be more likely to have a lower mood; whereas, a participant who uses these applications more than he or she usually does is associated with a better mood.
The findings also suggest that participants who generally use non-social applications more frequently might also tend to experience lower mood. As researchers stated, these findings do not indicate that reducing individual usage of non-social applications will improve mood; in fact, it could potentially worsen it.
Overall, the study findings suggest that smartphone use is not causally associated with mental wellbeing in adults. Further research with an experimental study design is needed to determine the causality of the observed associations.
The major strength of this study is its large sample size and rich longitudinal data collected over 4 weeks. However, the study included only adult participants, which may restrict the generalizability of its findings to children and adolescents who are more likely to be affected by smartphone use. The authors also note that the sample skewed slightly female and highly educated, although it included participants from all 50 states and a wide range of income levels.
Future studies involving adolescent populations and underrepresented ethnic groups are needed to understand the unique interplay between individual differences, device use, and mental wellbeing. Further research employing longitudinal designs is needed to determine the effect of prolonged smartphone use on mental wellbeing.
Download your PDF copy now!
Empowering genomics research with cloud-based innovation