Kids are spending hours each day using smartphones and social media, and it can have consequences for their mental health, a new survey affirms.
The survey of about 1,500 11- to 13-year-olds in Florida will be repeated annually with the same group to assess how their experiences change over time. The survey was administered in November and December.
It questioned the middle school-age students about a wide range of online and in-person behaviors and how commonly they engage in or experience them, including smartphone and social media use, sleep habits, and cyberbullying.
The report offers fresh insights for school and district leaders as they continue to navigate rapidly evolving technology and its effect on children’s mental health, engagement in class, attendance, and more.
Here are some key findings from the report, in charts.
Smartphones are ubiquitous, and kids are getting them at young ages
The vast majority—nearly 80%—of respondents said they have their own smartphone, and another 5% said they have a phone that is not a smartphone. About half the kids in the survey have phone with a data plan—which gives them constant access to the internet.
About one-third of kids who have a smartphone got their first device at 10 years old, while 19% said they got their first smartphone at 11, and 12% said they did at 12. Put together, almost two-thirds of kids in the survey said they’d gotten their first smartphone when they were 10 or younger.
Even the kids who don’t have their own smartphone are often using one, the report found.
Thirteen percent of respondents said they share a smartphone with someone, or they often or sometimes use someone else’s smartphone.
Altogether, 9 in 10 kids in the survey are smartphone users in some capacity.
YouTube is the top app for 11- to 13-year-olds
Nearly every child who responded to the survey reported they use some form of digital app. Ninety-eight percent said they use YouTube, 95% use a messaging app, and 87% said they use social media apps, although those have age requirements.
The majority of kids are likely to have their own account for apps, including YouTube (64%), TikTok (59%), Roblox (57%), and Instagram (48%). In most cases, 13-year-olds—who are of an age to be able to sign up for social media accounts—are more likely to have their own accounts than 11- and 12-year-olds. However, more than a third of 13-year-old boys and more than a fifth of 13-year-old girls said they had at some point lied about their age to sign up for a social media account.
Most kids—79%—said they have notifications on their devices turned on at least sometimes; 20% said notifications are always turned on.
Children from low-income households tend to have higher rates of digital media consumption, according to the report.
“Digital media may be somewhat like junk food; it’s everywhere, it’s affordable, it can have adverse effects when consumed in large quantities, and poorer kids consume more of it than wealthy kids do,” the report says.
The hours kids spend on their phones add up
On average, kids report spending more time on their devices during nonschool days than school days, but device use is heavy every day of the week. Kids spend 4.4 hours on their phones on school days, on average, compared with 6.3 hours on nonschool days.
They spend most of that time on their phones between 6 p.m. and midnight on school days. On nonschool days, kids spend about 2 hours on their smartphones between both noon and 6 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to midnight.
Boys have more worries about their online privacy
Boys tend to worry more about their online privacy as they get older, while girls worry less as they age, according to the survey.
Twelve- and 13-year-old boys were far more likely than girls of the same ages to worry “a lot” about their online privacy. Half of 12-year-old boys reported worrying a lot about their online privacy, compared to 40% of 12-year-old girls, and 51% of 13-year-old boys worry a lot compared to just 34% of 13-year-old girls.
Forty-three percent of 11-year-old boys worried a lot about their online privacy compared to 53% of girls the same age.
Most kids have been cyberbullied in the past three months
More than half of kids reported having been cyberbullied in some way in the past three months, according to the report. That could include being called mean names (43%), being left out of a group or activity on purpose (42%), having lies or rumors spread about them (39%), or having mean or hurtful pictures or videos posted about them (35%).
One in 5 kids said they had experienced cyberbullying at least once per week over the past three months.
Children who said they were bullied at least once in the previous three months were nearly three times as likely than their peers to feel depressed most days.
