Half of US teenagers are addicted to smartphones, tablets; their parents agree: Survey

By Steve Pak, | May 04, 2016

Teen using Smartphone

Teen using Smartphone

Half of all United States teens are addicted to mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, based on a new survey. The list of questions also showed that almost 60 percent of the teenagers' parents believe their sons and daughters find it difficult to put down their gadgets.

These findings were from a report from Common Sense Media based on a survey of over 1,200 teens and parents, according to NBC News. That organization studies the use of technology by children.

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Common Sense Media's survey discovered that 59 percent of parents believe their teens are addicted to cellphones and tablets. Meanwhile, 27 percent of Moms and Dads admitted that they were addicted to mobile devices themselves. About the same percentage of teens claimed their parents had a problem   

About twice as many teens reported they had a mobile addiction. Exactly half of them said they found it hard to stop using their smartphones and tablet computers.

Meanwhile, there was a big difference in how important parents and teenagers thought it was to quickly  respond to communications such as texts and calls. Over three-quarters of teens thought they should take the action, but less than half of parents had the same belief.  

In addition, over half of parents and teens admitted to looking at mobile devices while driving a vehicle. The figure was 56 percent of parents, and 51 percent of teens.

Many parents believe that there are certain times when mobile devices should be prohibited. One-third of the parents who participated in the survey said that they ban the gadgets at dinner tables.  

Although many mothers and fathers of teens and the youngsters themselves reported that they used mobile phones and tablets too much, the vast majority of them do not think it helps or harms their relationship with each other. The figure was high among both teens (89 percent) and parents (85 percent).

The report says that a big concern about using technology to stay connected is the issue of multi-tasking. This is between different devices, and between gadgets and real life.

Earl K. Miller is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor. He shares that multi-tasking with devices can be a problem because the human brain's bandwidth for processing new data is very limited, according to Today.   

Here are signs of smartphone addiction:


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