Third, there’s attention fragmentation. The average teen receives eleven notifications per waking hour on their smartphone, with heavy users potentially experiencing one notification per minute of every waking hour. Smartphones and social media are designed to pull the user’s attention away from whatever they are doing, providing a constant stream of notifications and the accompanying dopamine hits. This fragmentation of attention can compromise an individual’s ability to focus deeply on a task or engage in slower, more reflective modes of thinking. Even the mere presence of a phone in the room has been shown to impede a teen’s ability to focus on a task! This continual access to smartphones during a crucial period of brain development can mean that some users’ capacity for focus and attention never fully matures, as evidenced by the upward trend in ADHD diagnoses. Not surprisingly, studies show that individuals with ADHD often spend above-average amounts of time online and on their smartphones.
Finally, let’s discuss addiction. Smartphones and the apps that live on them are deliberately designed to be habit-forming and addictive. Preteens and teens, with their more plastic brains, are particularly vulnerable to developing these addictions. Smartphones and social media employ advanced behavioral techniques to create compulsive habits in users – the activation of external triggers, like notifications, is paired with the promise of variable rewards, such as likes or comments. This variability actually makes the experience more addictive, as users find themselves unable to resist the urge to seek out these rewards, even in the absence of the initial trigger. The dopamine rush that users experience when indulging their addiction is countered by the symptoms of withdrawal, including dysphoria, irritability, insomnia, and anxiety, that occur when the addiction can’t be satisfied.
Taken together, these four core harms inflicted by smartphones – social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction – have set the stage for the surge in mental disorders we’re seeing among children and adolescents.
The negative impacts of smartphones and social media can be curbed
Many adults who care for children and teens in some capacity are already well aware of the deleterious impact that smartphone use is having on this group’s mental and social well-being. The question then becomes, What can be done to address this pressing issue and support the healthy development of young people in the digital age?
To achieve a lasting, positive transformation, structural changes need to occur at the societal level. In the United States, governments have taken a paradoxical approach to protecting children – zealously enforcing vague “child neglect” laws to overprotect them in the physical world while underprotecting them in the virtual realm. Governments should take proactive steps to address this imbalance, such as passing laws that compel online companies, including social media and gaming platforms, to treat underage users with an extra duty of care. The age of “internet adulthood” should be raised to 16, recognizing the unique vulnerabilities of adolescents. At the same time, governments should institute more opportunities for free play and recess in the school system, and narrow neglect laws so parents can legally allow their children to engage in unsupervised play.
Tech companies, which have demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in creating habit-forming products, should now turn that same level of innovation toward ensuring the safety and well-being of children online. This could involve developing better age verification methods and far stricter options for parental control over digital content and device usage.
While structural change is necessary, it may be slow in coming. In the meantime, there are steps that parents and caregivers can take to protect children and promote healthy development.
March 10, 2026 718 1
