By Gavin Boyle
At this point, most people know the younger a person receives a smartphone of their own, the more negative the impact is on their mental health, but science now has answers to the age where the negative effects start to taper off.
“Our data indicated that early smartphone ownership [under the age of 13] — and the social media access it often brings — is linked with a profound shift in mind health and wellbeing in early adulthood,” said lead study author Tara Thiagarajan, a neuroscientist at Sapien Labs.
The study identified 13 years of age as being the youngest a person could begin to have access to smartphones and social media and not face devastating damage to their mental wellbeing in the future. Young adults who first got access to a smartphone at age 13 scored an average of 30 on the Mind Health Quotient, a global assessment of social, emotional and cognitive wellbeing, while for those who received a smartphone as early as 5 years old had an average score of 1.
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“This calls for urgent actions limiting access of children under [the age of] 13 to smartphones as well as more nuanced regulation on the digital environment young people are exposed to,” Thiagarajan said.
The significant reduction in mental wellbeing is linked to smartphone use, leading to higher rates of comparison, cyberbullying, sleep reduction and strained family relationships.
“The younger the child gets a smartphone, the more exposure to all this impacts them psychologically and shapes the way they think and view the world…” Thiagarajan told ABC News. “Ideally, children should not have a smartphone until age 14, and when they do get a smartphone, parents should take the time to discuss with their children how to interact on the internet and explain the consequences of doing various things.”
This study gives more support to the Surgeon General’s call in June 2024 to place a Surgeon General’s warning on social media. His statement called for a warning that notifies users of the scientifically-proven negative mental health impact social media has on young users.
Furthermore, this study also helps provide clear reasoning for potential future laws that could ban young users from social media or smartphones as a whole, similar to age restrictions on cigarettes, alcohol or gambling. Many social media sites already require their users to be over 13 years of age in their user guidelines but do very little to enforce this rule, unless it is blatantly broken.
Parents have long struggled to know at what age to give their kids a phone or social media account, and this study finally provides some scientific guidance on when it is relatively safe to open up this world to kids.
Read Next: Are Social Media Restrictions for Kids Under 13 Ineffective?
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