Digital technologies, including smartphones, social media, and online games, have become integral to adolescents' daily lives. But how do they truly impact their well-being? For years, studies have raised concerns about potential harms, yet most relied on methods that could not establish cause and effect. Over six years, the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (IRTIS) conducted 15 rigorous studies in the Czech Republic using advanced methods (longitudinal studies, experiments, and real-time assessments) to uncover how digital technologies impact adolescents’ psychological, social, and physical well-being.
Key Findings:
- Not all adolescents are the same. Most of the studies confirm that the impacts of technology vary significantly according to individual characteristics (such as gender, age, individual traits, or frequency and type of media use), making it a challenge to provide generalizations for the entire adolescent population.
- People experience various impacts on different aspects of well-being. The impacts of technology use vary across the different areas of psychological, physical, and social well-being of adolescents. While the impact may be positive in one area of well-being, it could be negative in another.
- Regarding psychological well-being, it was revealed that increased smartphone use and consistent usage throughout the day can raise stress levels in some adolescents. Additionally, spending more time on social networking apps slightly decreases positive affect and increases negative affect, though the impact is minimal. In contrast, no causal effect on affect was found for entertainment apps like videos and games.
- Do not worry about the socialization of adolescents. For social well-being (i.e., im provement or worsening of social skills, finding social support, and the impact of sexting), no negative or positive causal impacts of smartphone use, social media, and other technologies were found.
- Gender differences in the impact of digital technology. The research revealed variations in how digital technology affects the well-being of girls and boys. For instance, regarding physical well-being, it was found that reading comments on social media posts praising idealized beauty standards has a causal impact on body dissatis faction, but only among adolescent girls. However, differences between boys and girls were observed in only some studies, and these varied depending on the specific aspect of well-being being examined.
- What adolescents do matters. The studies show that it matters how exactly adolescents use social media, smartphones, and other technologies. For example, increased use of social media on smartphones can make adolescents feel worse in some cases, but using entertainment apps (e.g., playing games or watching videos) does not have any causal positive or negative impact on affect.
- Distinguish short-term and long-term effects. A distinction needs to be made between the short-term and long-term impacts of using digital technologies. Short-term impact on affect or other characteristics may not be related to long-term life satisfaction and, therefore, can not be automatically projected onto the long term effects.
- No simple answers. The question of the impact of smartphones, social media, and other technologies on adolescents cannot therefore be answered simple and straightforward. Simplistic and hasty conclusions should be avoided.
The study can be downloaded in the background section.