A new psychological study found that adolescents who perceive their parents as frequently distracted by smartphones are more likely to show signs of insecurity. The findings raise questions about digital habits at home and their impact on family well-being, including among Latino families navigating screen use and mental health challenges.
Scientific evidence has already shown that early exposure to screens affects children’s neurological development. With this in mind, schools and parents across Spain are trying to limit the amount of time children spend in front of computers, cellphones, and tablets. But there is one front in this fight against the digitalization of everyday life that often goes overlooked: parents themselves. And the data suggest it shouldn’t be ignored.
A study recently published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology reveals that adolescents whose parents are frequently distracted by their phones are more likely to display insecure behaviors, which can have negative consequences for their future well-being.
Many children feel they are competing with cell phones for their parents’ attention, as shown by other studies. But does parents’ overuse of cell phone devices really affect their children? That is what the lead author of the study, Dr. Don Grant of the Newport Healthcare Center for Research and Innovation — a U.S. organization with several clinics focused on youth mental health — set out to investigate. More specifically, the team wanted to see whether it affects how adolescents relate to others.
To measure this, Grant’s team asked 600 adolescents aged 12 to 17 to rate how they felt about their parents’ phone use and how they perceived it affected their attention, availability, and interactions with them. The goal was to determine whether there was a correlation between high scores on this measure and greater insecurity on other assessments. And the answer was yes.
“This problem seems to be far more widespread than I myself thought,” Grant says. “I think millennials, who are now beginning to become parents, should be aware of this study. Considered the first generation of digital natives, they are in turn potentially more vulnerable to developing a dependence on their devices.”
“There are studies linking parental phubbing [term meaning ignoring someone in front of you because you’re looking at your phone] to anxiety problems,” says Walter Jones, spokesperson for the Adolescence Free of Phones platform, who was not involved in the study. “It is also known to make children feel displaced within the family nucleus and more likely to seek approval on social media.”
Jones and his colleagues give talks in primary and secondary schools and always ask children whether they suffer parental phubbing. “Many tell us they do, that they often have to repeat things to their parents because their parents are on their phones and don’t listen when they speak.”
Parental responsibility
The harmful effects of screens on children’s cognitive development are well-documented. The Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) recommends that children avoid screens entirely up to the age of six — the period of greatest neural plasticity — and that, between the ages of seven and 12, their use be limited to one hour a day, including time spent on screens at school. A meta-analysis involving data from 300,000 children confirmed that those who use screens more at age five tend to have more problems by age seven, a finding that had already been observed among adolescents.
Cell phones are also many adolescents’ gateway to toxic or outright illegal content, which is why many families try to delay adolescents’ access to these devices as long as possible. In the U.S., courts have ruled that platforms such as Instagram and YouTube are guilty of creating addiction among minors, and that Meta (the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, among others) deceived consumers about the safety of its platforms and put minors at risk. In countries such as France and Spain, bans on social media for adolescents are being processed (in Spain, the proposed minimum age has been set at 16).
