Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study

Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study

Highlights

• More hours of screen time are associated with lower well-being in ages 2 to 17.

• High users show less curiosity, self-control, and emotional stability.

• Twice as many high (vs. low) users of screens had an anxiety or depression diagnosis.

• Non-users and low users did not differ in well-being.

• Associations with well-being were larger for adolescents than for children.

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Your kid’s brain is being engineered to get him to stay on his phone

Your kid’s brain is being engineered to get him to stay on his phone

“Your kid is not weak-willed because he can’t get off his phone,” Brown says. “Your kid’s brain is being engineered to get him to stay on his phone.”

The headquarters of Boundless Mind looks as if it were created by a set designer to satisfy a cultural cliché. The tech startup is run out of a one-car garage a few blocks from California’s Venice Beach. On the morning I visited, in March, it was populated by a […]

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Smartphones: “psychological manipulation at right moment, is what makes it so powerful.”

Smartphones: "psychological manipulation at right moment, is what makes it so powerful."

…psychological manipulation at just the right moment, is what makes it so powerful.

These design techniques provide tech corporations a window into kids’ hearts and minds to measure their particular vulnerabilities, which can then be used to control their behavior as consumers. This isn’t some strange future… this is now. Facebook claimed the leaked report was misrepresented in the press. But when child advocates called on the social network to release it, the company refused to do so, preferring to keep the techniques it uses to influence kids shrouded in secrecy.

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