Statistics, charts and data from Jean Twenge’s book: ‘Ten Rules for Raising Kids in a High-tech World'

We know you love to be informed, and we also know you love a good chart or two.

For your information (or perhaps to help you in preparing talks or speaking to parents and teens) scroll down for some thought-provoking and shocking insights into young people’s mental health and smartphone habits.

Warning: contains mention of suicide.

The following quotes, statistics and pieces of advice are drawn from the books ‘Ten Rules for Raising Kids in a High-tech world’ and ‘IGen’ by Jean Twenge.

Mental health and young people

The data consistently shows dramatic changes to young people’s mental health from 2010 onwards, the same year Instagram was created.

Some charts documenting horrendous changes in our young people’s mental health and an equation that’s worth keeping in mind…

What can parents do?

Parenting styles vary. Academic research categorises them in the following way:

What young people need is authoritative parents who communicate clearly and act with consistency.

Kids know that social media is harming them and they want their parents to help them: In a recent poll, half of 18- to 27-year-olds said they wished TikTok and Snapchat had never been invented.

The importance of sleep

Not getting enough sleep is a risk factor for just about everything we’d like our kids to avoid, from getting sick to feeling depressed. Yet most kids—90% according to one study—are not getting enough sleep.

We need sleep. A chart from the National Sleep Foundation on recommended ranges for daily sleep needs in each age group:

And yet a shocking 6 out of 10 kids used their phones between midnight and 5 a.m. on school nights in a study that tracked 11- to 17-year-olds’ phone use for a week.

28% of 12- and 13-year-olds used their phones when they woke up during the night.

What’s so bad about Social Media?

Harmful content for start. About half of young adults say they’ve seen at least one self-harm post on Instagram, and a shocking one out of three of those copied the behaviour and harmed themselves in the same way.

UK teen Molly Russell’s Instagram delivered more than 300 posts a month related to suicide, self-harm, and depression before she took her own life at the age of 14.

One study found that users struggling with eating disorders (versus those who were not) were shown 146% more appearance-oriented videos,11 335% more diet-related videos, and 4343% more toxic eating disorder videos on TikTok.

Sextortion is also a big problem on social media. In recent years, Snapchat alone has received more than 10,000 reports of sextortion a month, which their own internal analysis concluded “likely represent(s) a small fraction of this abuse.”

Nearly 6 out of 10 people—including Instagram users themselves—said they would prefer to live in a world without Instagram.

Meta’s internal research found that 13% of British teen users and 6% of American teen users who had suicidal thoughts said their desire to kill themselves traced back to Instagram.

Also discuss how social media companies are making money off kids’ time and attention. (Teens love the idea of adult conspiracies, and this actually is one!) According to one estimate, social media companies make $11 billion a year in advertising revenue from children and teens 17 and under. Two billion of that was from children 12 and under.

What makes young people happy?

The second most significant activity a young person can engage in to improve their overall happiness levels is: attending church.

Churches need to be making more of this data!

You can also improve the chances of your teen having better mental health by delaying when you give them a phone or allow them access to social media:

Consider this for the amount of distractions young people are bombarded with every day: 

Kids 11 to 17 get an average of 237 notifications a day

““You’ll regret not giving your kid a smartphone earlier,” said no one ever. I’ve never heard a parent say this.” - Jean Twenge

We should create ‘no-phone zones’

The bedroom should be one: College students who used devices for an hour before bed were 59% more likely to have symptoms of insomnia and slept 24 minutes less than those who didn’t use devices before bed. That’s mostly because electronic devices stimulate the brain, which is the opposite of what you want before going to bed, when you instead want to calm the brain down. 

Going to sleep is like landing a plane: it can’t be done suddenly. 

Phones don’t alleviate boredom, they may make it worse:

In one experiment, people who had their phones available during conversations with friends were more likely to say they were bored than those who did not have their phones available. So it’s not just that boredom leads to device use—device use also leads to boredom. At first this seems counterintuitive, but it makes sense: Device time is just not as interesting or as meaningful as what’s going on in the real world.

In 2008, when few teens had smartphones, 45% of 8th graders said they were often bored. By 2023, it was 61%. Devices filled with bite-size videos were supposed to mean we were never bored, but instead more teens than ever are filled with ennui.

Young people are growing up more slowly…

Gaming devices and kids.

Beware the impact on mental health and encourage parents to keep them out of their teen’s bedroom:

Phone in Schools:

If you Google “teacher quit because of phones,” you’ll find story after story of teachers who could no longer deal with the constant battles over phones in the classroom. 72% of high school teachers say that students being distracted by their phones in the classroom is a major problem.

And also:

“Several studies have found that the mere presence of a smartphone reduces cognitive performance.”

On behavioural issues:

When the North Adams school district in Massachusetts banned phones during the school day, discipline referrals dropped a stunning 75%

From Norway:

A study of Norwegian middle schools found that smartphone bans led to improved academic performance, less bullying, and better mental health, especially for girls.

Cigarettes and screens, a comparison:

“In the early 1960s, when my parents were in high school, they received free sampler packs of cigarettes on their cafeteria trays,”12 writes Russell Shaw, the head of school at Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC. “I believe that future generations will look back with the same incredulity at our acceptance of phones in schools.” Another way to think about it: Back in the 1980s, would schools have allowed students to bring their own TVs to school? Of course not, but allowing phones—which are even more powerful entertainment devices than TVs—is just as bad or worse. “We’re competing with Netflix, FaceTime, texting,”

We’re reading and learning less than we used to:

And Finally… advice on keeping kids safe from real harm:

When you hear people say that the world is more dangerous now than before you might want to remind them that it’s not, actually.

Crime is lower now than it was when most parents were kids in the 1970s−1990s. Stranger kidnappings are exceedingly rare—it’s more likely your kid will be struck by lightning than kidnapped by a stranger. 

Warwick Cairns, author of the book ‘How to Live Dangerously’, calculates that if for some bizarre reason you wanted your kid to get kidnapped, they would have to be outside unattended for 750,000 years on average for that to happen.

Most crimes against kids are committed by people they know, not by strangers. 

Twenge suggest that instead of warning them about stranger danger, teach them the three R’s: 

Recognise that no one is allowed to touch you where your bathing suit covers.

Resist by yelling, kicking, or running away. Don’t be nice if someone is bothering you. 

Report what happened. Even if the person makes you promise not to tell … tell. Reassure your kids that you will not be mad at them no matter what happened.