The Benefits and Drawbacks of Teens Smartphone Use
Teenage use of smartphones
The biggest worry parents have with me is that their adolescent is using their phone excessively.
Their worries center around their capacity to form genuine connections and take part in meaningful family interactions. This may prove to be a challenging experience for parents as well as their teens.
Communication and cohesiveness within the family can be negatively impacted by conflicts and miscommunications between the two eras.
I think it’s useful to outline some of the key causes of teens’ excessive phone addiction as well as the benefits and drawbacks of phone use.
Teenagers may view phones as all positive, while parents may view them as all negative. Successful interaction between the two generations is facilitated when both parties recognize the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing their phones.
Although using a phone has numerous advantages, I believe there are two that are particularly important for promoting mental wellness.
1. Phones facilitate our ability to maintain social connections.
Our network of friends is one of the most significant protective elements when it comes to mental health. The more we can connect and get encouragement from friends in a meaningful way, the more probable it is that we will have the ability to handle the various stressors that life throws at us.
2. One of the primary advantages of phones is that:
i. They keep us organized and on top of the numerous errands and jobs we have to complete each day, which is another key advantage of using them.
ii. By enabling us to set reminders and organize the knowledge we require for achievement
iii. Devices can help us reduce some of the stress that comes with attempting to remember everything. This relieves some of the mental strain that life’s business can sometimes bring.
However, using a phone might have some drawbacks as well. In this article, I’ll discuss the two primary ones that I observe in the mental health field.
1. Their amazing ability to assist us is actually linked to the largest issue with phone use.
2. The greatest issue with using mobile phones is actually related to their amazing capacity to keep us in touch. Although having strong social ties is a great protective element, we also have the ability to make it a major source of stress.
Being in constant contact with our social groups can become extremely stressful if we are concerned about how we come across them. This may result in us spending late nights comparing our profiles to those of others on social media and obsessing about how others see us.
The next most significant issue observed is the potential for phone use to become addictive. Like with many addicting hobbies, there are moments when we turn to our phones as a solution to life’s issues.
When life becomes difficult, we run the risk of burying our troubles behind our phones’ entertainment and distraction, only to have them resurface years later in ways that are less beneficial.
Although the aforementioned is not an exhaustive list of advantages and disadvantages, I believe that discussing some of them might help parents and their kids have more fruitful conversations.
We will be more able to preserve our mental well-being in an ecosystem that is becoming more and more virtually connected if we can better grasp how this technology can be used to our advantage and take safety measures to shield ourselves from its threats.