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Scientific Evidence for Cell Phone Safety

The state of scientific knowledge continues to demonstrate that:

• The current limit on radio frequency (RF) energy set by the Federal Communications Commission remains acceptable for protecting the public health. The FDA recently provided an updated assessment of the current limits based on the currently available scientific evidence (see Letter from the FDA to the FCC on Radiofrequency Exposure - PDF 74KB).
• To date, there is no consistent or credible scientific evidence of health problems caused by the exposure to radio frequency energy emitted by cell phones (see Review of Published Literature between 2008 and 2018 of Relevance to Radiofrequency Radiation and Cancer – PDF 1.3MB).

The FDA’s doctors, scientists and engineers continually monitor the scientific studies and public health data for evidence that radio frequency energy from cell phones could cause adverse health effects. If a credible risk is detected, the FDA will work closely with other federal partners to mitigate the risk.

The gold standard for the assessment of risk to public health remains the data and information that is available from studying effects on humans. The currently available epidemiological studies, public health surveillance data, and supportive laboratory studies on cell phone radiation provide abundant evidence to support the FDA’s determination.

On this page:

Epidemiological studies and public health surveillance data, in vivo scientific studies.

• The FDA’s Review of the National Toxicology Program’s Studies in High Dose Radio Frequency Radiation

International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph

• No New Implications for 5G

Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity: Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance to Electromagnetic Fields

• Scientific Information about Radio Frequency Exposure

As part of ongoing monitoring activities, the FDA analyzes published epidemiological studies for specific outcomes including brain and other tumors as well as for any evidence of other adverse events. No clear and consistent pattern has emerged from epidemiological studies. Based on the evaluation of the currently available information, the FDA believes that the weight of the scientific evidence does not support an increase in health risks from radio frequency exposure from cell phone use at or below the radio frequency exposure limits set by the FCC.

The FDA also monitors the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes for Health (NIH). The SEER data show that brain cancer rates are not increasing in the United States despite the significant increase in the number of cell phone users.

Ascribing changes in population-based health related outcomes to single causes is always challenging. Even so, the SEER data provide highly reliable statistics on the current rates of cancer in the U.S. population. As a highly relevant example, data from the SEER database for brain and other nervous system cancer incidence rates shows that, from 2000 to 2016, the rate of such cancers has gone down from a rate of 6.9 per 100,000 (confidence intervals 6.7 – 7.0) in 2000 to a rate of 5.9 cases per 100,000 (confidence interval 5.8 to 6.1) in 2016. NCI also estimates that from 1987 to 2016, the rate of such tumors has been dropping by approximately 0.2% per year.

The NCI data clearly demonstrate no widespread rise in brain and other nervous system cancers in the last (nearly) three decades despite the enormous increase in cell phone use during this period. The Pew Research Center estimates that from 2002 to 2019, the percentage of the population owning a cell phone or smartphone has risen from 62 percent to 96 percent, and yet there is a small decrease in brain and other nervous tissue cancer rates.

Published in vivo studies have yielded no clear evidence that radio frequency energy exposure at levels experienced by the public from cell phone use leads to tumorigenesis.

Over the last decade or so, many scientific articles have been published on the effects of radio frequency energy on animals. None of these articles have produced convincing evidence that localized exposure of radio frequency radiation (RFR) at levels that would be encountered by cell phone users can lead to health problems. Although some researchers have reported adverse biological changes associated with RF energy, these studies have not been replicated. Most published studies have failed to show an association between exposure to RF energy from a cell phone and health problems.

In vivo animal studies assessing possible adverse or other effects of radio frequency energy are extremely challenging studies to design and undertake due to numerous confounding factors. The methodological flaws and weaknesses in many radio frequency energy exposure studies include:

• Failure to accurately determine the specific absorption rate (SAR) of exposures to radio frequency energy
• Failure to use a reproducible source of radio frequency energy
• Failure to verify the subject animal’s core temperature did not increase during exposure
• The use of too few animals
• Failure to include adequate controls (e.g., sham exposures that do not account for vibration or high frequency sound that accompany radio frequency exposure, lack of positive controls, etc.)
• Incomplete reporting
• Improper interpretation of results

In addition, the results from studies on whole-body exposures are not comparable to real world local exposures as occurs with cell phone use. In a whole-body exposure, the animal’s temperature will rise until exposure is stopped. By contrast, in a local exposure, blood flow cools the area of exposure.

The FDA’s Review of the National Toxicology Program’s Studies on High Dose Radio Frequency Radiation

In 2018, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) published the results of two hazard identification studies conducted at the request of the FDA. The studies were conducted with high power levels of RFR over the whole body of experimental rodents. The radio frequency energy was delivered in intervals of 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off for 18 hours and 20 minutes a day, every day for 2 years.

The conclusions relating to public health risks reached by the FDA’s scientists differ from those of the NTP, and the FDA determination is that the study did not demonstrate that cell phones cause cancer.

5 Facts About the Rat Study

• Rats received radiation over their entire bodies .
• Rats received this whole-body radiation for 9 hours per day for their entire lives .
• Rats received levels of radiation that were up to 75 times higher than the whole-body exposure limit for people.
• The study found no health effects on female rats or mice (both male and female) exposed to these extreme conditions that passed a test for statistical significance.
• Exposed rats lived longer than the control group rats.

The design did not reflect the partial-body radio frequency exposure people receive from cell phone use and as noted by the NTP in their February 2018 press release :

"The levels and duration of exposure to RFR were much greater than what people experience with even the highest level of cell phone use and exposed the rodents’ whole bodies. So, these findings should not be directly extrapolated to human cell phone usage. "

In 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published a monograph that classified radio frequency fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (class 2B). This classification is an indication that more research is probably justified. The 2013 IARC classification was based on limited evidence in humans which were from a few case-control epidemiological studies.

The IARC committee acknowledged that those studies were susceptible to certain limitations such as recall errors by the participants and the selection criteria for participation. The classification was also based on a few animal studies which had only weak mechanistic evidence relevant to carcinogenic action. The determination that the IARC committee made was that the evidence in humans could not be dismissed as only due to bias for the group that received the highest exposures.

In the monograph, the IARC committee stated that, "Time trends in cancer of the brain have not shown evidence of a trend that would indicate a promptly acting and powerful carcinogenic effect of mobile-phone use."

There are several more time trend papers that have been published since the 2013 IARC monograph. These newer time trend studies further demonstrate that while use of cell phones has risen rapidly, the incidence of brain cancer has not risen.

No New implications for 5G

The FDA is responsible for, among other things, ensuring cell phones – and any radiation-emitting electronic product – are safe for the public to use. This includes, understanding the health risks (if any) of new electronic products that emit radiation as they become widely available to the U.S. public, such as 5G cell phones. While many of the specifics of 5G remain ill-defined, it is known that 5G cell phones will use frequencies covered by the current FCC exposure guidelines (300 kHz-100 GHz), and the conclusions reached based on the current body of scientific evidence covers these frequencies. The FDA will continue to monitor scientific information as it becomes available regarding the potential impacts of 5G.

To date, the scientific evidence indicates symptoms experienced by people who self-identify as having electromagnetic hypersensitivity occur when the individual believes they are being exposed to radio frequency energy. Based on the available scientific evidence, their very real symptoms are not the result of radio frequency exposures. Many studies have been done to determine if participants can determine if they are being exposed to RF or a sham exposure. The results indicate people cannot sense when they are being exposed to RF. The World Health Organization has a fact sheet on this subject: Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity . The FDA continues to monitor all scientific publications in this area.

Scientific Information About Radio Frequency Exposure

Other sources of scientific information about RF exposure and safety is available from these U.S. and international organizations:

• Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Wireless Devices and Health Concerns
• National Cancer Institute (NCI): Cell Phones and Cancer Risk
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Frequently Asked Questions about Cell Phones and Your Health
• World Health Organization (WHO): Electromagnetic fields and public health: mobile phones What are the health risks associated with mobile phones and their base stations?
• International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC): IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans Volume 102: Non-ionizing Radiation, Part 2: Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields
• International Commission on Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP): Mobile Phones, Brain Tumours and The Interphone Study: Where Are We Now? (PDF) Mobile Phones

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• 29 May 2023

Episode 27: Our mobile world: How the cell phone is changing science and research

• Subhra Priyadarshini

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A researcher documenting ant colonies. Credit: Subhra Priyadarshini

Does the mobile phone have a place in the lab?

The smartphone is a great example of technology leapfrog in countries like India, where a vast majority of phone users never had a landline. The increasing penetration of affordable mobile phones in developing countries is now making it possible for scientists to conduct meaningful and timely research, in the lab, field or while working from home.

Nature India's 'Our mobile world' podcast series will look at the many ways in which the smartphone has changed India’s science-society dynamics and the way researchers work. We will look at themes ranging from smartphones as enablers of science and research in India, to digital health, digital illiteracy, research around mobile phone e-waste, the gender digital divide and innovations in healthcare, medicine, agriculture and governance. We've chosen stories predominantly from India but also have examples from other counties in the global south.

Host: Subhra Priyadarshini, production and script: Aroma Warsi, sound editing: Prince George.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d44151-023-00061-9

(Lightly edited for readability)

Speakers : Subhajit Bandyopadhyay, Preethi Jyothi, Jayashree Balasubramaniam, Subhra Priyadarshini

00:02 Support announcement : This episode is produced with support from DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance.

00:30 Subhra Priyadarshini : The mobile phone. Yes, that’s the subject of our new podcast season. It’s ubiquitous, its indispensable, it’s almost like an extension of your hand. In many countries of the global south, such as India, the smartphone is a great example of technology leapfrog, as a vast majority of phone users never had a landline and were introduced to phones with the handheld phone.

And, of course, the increasing penetration of affordable mobile phones in developing countries is also making it possible for scientists to conduct meaningful and timely research, in the lab, in the field or while working from home, especially what we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am your host Subhra Priyadarshini, and in this new season of the Nature India podcast, I will explore how the mobile phone has changed India’s science-society dynamics as well as the way scientists, researchers and policy makers work. In today’s episode we will specifically look at smartphones as enablers of science and research. We will talk about the use of mobile phones for research and data collection, crowdsourcing and science education.

In short, does the lab have a place for the mobile phone? Let’s find out.

Up first, we talk of the use of mobile phones in a science laboratory setting. Convenient, right? When you don’t have a laptop handy. But can they also replace bulky, expensive scientific instruments in the lab or help set up labs, for instance, in remote places? We ask Subhajit Bandyopadhyay, a professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Kolkata.

2:37 Subhajit Bandyopadhyay : Oh, yes, of course. A mobile phone can be used as a great tool, because it has so many features. I teach chemistry, and we deal with a lot of problems that are associated with chemistry. So quite often, you use instruments called spectrophotometers. And what it does is, it would tell you, very simplistically, a lot about the intensity of light and how it various wavelengths and so on. Typical spectrophotometric would be quite expensive. So if in village schools where you don't really have a stable power supply, and if the funding situation is not that great. We have developed programs, which could be used by schoolchildren, to supplement spectrophotometers. And they can do certain experiments like chemical kinetics and stuff with these cell phones. So it's basically free. And it's really easy to use. And, you know, the precision would not be as good as the spectrophotometer. But it's pretty good.

3:38 Subhra Priyadarshini : Right. And while mobile apps can provide easy access to scientific information, analysis, or simulations, or making learning and experimentation more engaging and accessible, imagine if you are colour blind or have impaired vision and can’t differentiate between all the colourful liquids in a chemistry lab. Subhajit and his team developed a smartphone app that helps colour-blind and visually impaired students detect colour change in a routine lab experiment, thereby ensuring their active participation and independence in the lab.

6:11 Subhajit Bandyopadhyay : We developed this a few years ago. About 8% of the male population of the world is colour blind. And about 0.5% of the female population of the world is colour blind. Now that's, that's really a big number. I'm thinking of a classroom of 80 students or, or sometimes in big colleges, it's over 100 students, you have a large number of students who are colour blind. Now, these students cannot really perform the chemistry experiments, because very often this chemistry experiments would involve colours. For example, the basic experiment of titration, acid base titration, or redox titration would involve colours. So what we did was we basically use this mobile phone camera and translated the colour data to something which was easy for a student with color blindness to perceive. For example, when the there is a change in the colour from colourless to red, the screen would indicate the colour change. At the same time, there will be other indicators like beeping sound, or it would vibrate.

Really was a very rewarding experience for me. So a few years ago, I went to Vietnam and one of the students told me that he was colour blind. And he said, he uses a particular programme that helps him greatly, and he takes out the phone and shows me my programme. So it was really a wonderful experience for me.

The application records the colour information. Hue Saturation and Value colour space and when there is a change in colour, it basically says there is a colour change by various means like beep sounds or vibration pulses.

6:11 Subhra Priyadarshini : One of Subhajit’s students Balraj Rathod, now a PhD scholar at the University of British Columbia in Canada, helped the team make this app.

Now, mobile phones have also emerged as supplementary teaching methods by providing access to educational resources, remote communication and multimedia learning. Preethi Jyothi, a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at IIT Bombay uses it as a teaching aid.

6:53 Preethi Jyothi : So to give an example, smartphones now have lots of these built-in sensors. And using the sensors, you could teach fundamental concepts in physics, like, motion, and pressure, and so on. Typically abstract concepts, but using smartphones to make lab lessons applications involving these concepts would really reinforce the student's interest in learning,specific concepts. and also language learning. when you're trying to speak a new language, how to pronounce words, and so on, if you have apps on your smartphones, which will record what you're saying, and then give you instant feedback about how you're pronouncing certain words. That's a very powerful kind of tool. So I think science education, certainly mobile phones have a place.

7:35 Subhra Priyadarshini : And Preethi tell us a bit about the crowd sourced research, which has been your forte, along with your colleague Kameswari Chebrolu.

7:45 Preethi Jyothi : These days smartphones can also be used to gather data from people. And this could be because smartphones have GPS systems enabled, you could use it to gather data from people for various applications, like say traffic forecasting, or route planning and so on. I work on applying machine learning techniques for speech and language. And I'm specifically interested in building technologies for Indian languages. And so this app that we built that it's called clap, it's available on the Google Play Store. So this is an app via which you can be collected speech data from anyone who downloads this app. the volunteers would be asked to just read out these prompts. what we get immediately is parallel text with the corresponding speech from different speakers. unlike maybe other crowdsourcing platforms, which are very well known like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and so on, which actually have many users from India, what we have found is that platforms like Mechanical Turk, most of the users are urban users, this automatically excludes a large fraction of users. Smartphones, now the reach is so much wider. And so our idea was to be able to reach users across a very broad spectrum, spanning multiple demographics they're all already very comfortable with using mobile phones. And this is currently a big area of interest across kind of machine learning technologies that you don't want to be catering just to very small sections of users. And if you're building machine learning applications, it all everything that is driving the accuracy of the such applications is the data that is being used to train these applications.That was the motivation behind building such an app on a smartphone so that we could get data from diverse users, and then use that to train speech recognition and language technologies.

9:40 Subhra Priyadarshini : Certainly, phones are the new trainers and teachers. They also play a crucial role in disseminating scientific knowledge for various end users. Take the instance of farmers as consumers of scientific knowledge. Jayashree Balasubramaniam, who works in the business of communication at Reliance Foundation tells us more.

10:06 Jayashree Balasubramaniam : The whole context of using mobile phones to bridge a number of gaps, I think that's something that's really picked up, especially post-COVID, where people have not only broken down their own personal barriers, but I think technology has grown immensely. What has also happened is that we see a large number of people, especially from communities, like small and marginal farmers, looking at ways in which they can explore this, take, for instance, you know, something that's related to crop practices, or, you know, pests and disease or a package of practices that developed by agricultural research institutions, and that's actually to be used by farmers. So what's been happening is that the typical agricultural extension services has managed to reach out to farmers through physical modes, but given the limitations that, you know, situations, such as the COVID pandemic brought in, what happened was that farmers also had to kind of look at other ways to gather the same information. During, you know, the 2020, I think this was the only sector in India that actually kind of had a positive growth. And this was primarily thanks to the way that they had, you know, kind of leveraged their knowledge.

11:27 Subhra Priyadarshini : Agriculture sciences have been a great beneficiary of mobile phone use for data collection and surveys, crowdsourcing, education and dissemination. We’ll, of course, dedicate a full episode to talk about this unique use case. But Jayashree, do talk us through a few of these use cases in this field as you have been at the forefront of this use.

11:53 Jayashree Balasubramaniam : Take for instance, you know, access to mobile-based advisories. Now, one of the biggest barriers in actually reaching information to a community like a small and marginal farmer has been internet connectivity or mobile connectivity, or actually just the use of technology, the ability to use technology,we work with millions of farmers across the country, when we actually need to send out a message, it's not just given to them in a simple localized context and format, it's also given in multiple languages. So, I think breaking the language barrier has been like one of you know, the most important steps in reaching this information, besides of course, the penetration in internet connectivity, The second is actually looking at ways in which with low mobile connectivity or low internet connectivity areas, you can use simple methods, these could be you know, chatbots this could be voice messages, this could also be some sort of audio conferencing that happens, where with a limited bandwidth and with a limited physical presence, you can still kind of get your message across, what we found through you know, our work in in a number of locations is that not only is the knowledge used, but you know, 75% or most of the farmers who have actually received these you know, pieces of information at different points of time have reported that they have actually improved their livelihoods.

13:18 Subhra Priyadarshini : And you see an easy uptake of this scientific information by people who may not have been exposed to science at all?

13:27 Jayashree Balasubramaniam : The second part of this whole process is adding to the scientific information with some sort of, you know, physical demonstration, new seed varieties, crop practices,water efficient , climate resilient, practices that can help rural communities.For instance, we're looking at something like Go. And DVIR are like a normalized difference vegetation index, which is you using, you know, satellite imagery.How it can predict something like drought or other crop stresses, even before that, it actually happens, it makes a big difference in actually transmitting this information. So this information is not just, you know, looked at, as somebody who's watching it, observing it, and recording it in a lab with the use of satellite imagery, this is actually getting translated through mobile or messaging or through, you know, mobile platforms, it's also like, you know, rural communities, we're using it for micro entrepreneurship and other things, but here translating the scientific information in simple, digestible nuggets, that has made a big difference to the way they actually adapt it on the field.

Now, we look at how integrated information like, weather, there is some sort of an impending natural disaster, you know, floods or cyclones, for instance, there are fishing communities who are actually exposing themselves to risk on a day to day basis,we found that 97% of the fishing communities were who actually received preventive information about the weather, said that actually, they not just, you know, minimize their losses, but actually, a lot of them were able to take preventive action to save their livelihood.

15:07 Subhra Priyadarshini : 10 years back Abhijit Pakhare, a community medicine specialist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Bhopal and his colleagues analysed the use of mobile phones as research instruments for data collection in household surveys, clinical trials, surveillance and spatial data in global south countries. They inferred that mobile phones enabled economical, environment-friendly, faster and more accurate data collection for research. The limitations, however, were data entry errors, connectivity issues and of course the digital divide – all of which we will have a closer look at in our next episodes.

Ten years later, due to their widespread availability, affordability and connectivity, mobile phones are becoming extremely important to the process of science as much as science’s connect to society, as we have just heard through examples in the lab, in classrooms, in farming, fishing, rural communities. While urban users have to actually use apps for digital detox to keep away from potential negative effects of mobile use, science certainly benefits from these tiny devices. We will hear more on various aspects of scientific research benefitting from during this season.

Stay tuned, and give us a listen at your favourite podcast platform. This is Subhra Priyadarshini signing off from the Nature India podcast.

16:56 Support announcement : This episode was brought to you with support from DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance.

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Bans may help protect classroom focus, but districts need to stay mindful of students’ sense of connection, experts say

Students around the world are being separated from their phones.

In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 77 percent of U.S. schools had moved to prohibit cellphones for nonacademic purposes. In September 2018, French lawmakers outlawed cellphone use for schoolchildren under the age of 15. In China, phones were banned country-wide for schoolchildren last year.

Supporters of these initiatives have cited links between smartphone use and bullying and social isolation and the need to keep students focused on schoolwork.

77% Of U.S. schools moved to ban cellphones for nonacademic purposes as of 2020, according to the National Center for Education Statistics

But some Harvard experts say instructors and administrators should consider learning how to teach with tech instead of against it, in part because so many students are still coping with academic and social disruptions caused by the pandemic. At home, many young people were free to choose how and when to use their phones during learning hours. Now, they face a school environment seeking to take away their main source of connection.

“Returning back to in-person, I think it was hard to break the habit,” said Victor Pereira, a lecturer on education and co-chair of the Teaching and Teaching Leadership Program at the Graduate School of Education.

Through their students, he and others with experience both in the classroom and in clinical settings have seen interactions with technology blossom into important social connections that defy a one-size-fits-all mindset. “Schools have been coming back, trying to figure out, how do we readjust our expectations?” Pereira added.

It’s a hard question, especially in the face of research suggesting that the mere presence of a smartphone can undercut learning .

Michael Rich , an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that phones and school don’t mix: Students can’t meaningfully absorb information while also texting, scrolling, or watching YouTube videos.

“The human brain is incapable of thinking more than one thing at a time,” he said. “And so what we think of as multitasking is actually rapid-switch-tasking. And the problem with that is that switch-tasking may cover a lot of ground in terms of different subjects, but it doesn’t go deeply into any of them.”

Pereira’s approach is to step back — and to ask whether a student who can’t resist the phone is a signal that the teacher needs to work harder on making a connection. “Two things I try to share with my new teachers are, one, why is that student on the phone? What’s triggering getting on your cell phone versus jumping into our class discussion, or whatever it may be? And then that leads to the second part, which is essentially classroom management.

“Design better learning activities, design learning activities where you consider how all of your students might want to engage and what their interests are,” he said. He added that allowing phones to be accessible can enrich lessons and provide opportunities to use technology for school-related purposes.

Mesfin Awoke Bekalu, a research scientist in the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Chan School, argues that more flexible classroom policies can create opportunities for teaching tech-literacy and self-regulation.

“There is a huge, growing body of literature showing that social media platforms are particularly helpful for people who need resources or who need support of some kind, beyond their proximate environment,” he said. A study he co-authored by Rachel McCloud and Vish Viswanath for the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness shows that this is especially true for marginalized groups such as students of color and LGBTQ students. But the findings do not support a free-rein policy, Bekalu stressed.

In the end, Rich, who noted the particular challenges faced by his patients with attention-deficit disorders and other neurological conditions, favors a classroom-by-classroom strategy. “It can be managed in a very local way,” he said, adding: “It’s important for parents, teachers, and the kids to remember what they are doing at any point in time and focus on that. It’s really only in mono-tasking that we do very well at things.”

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David Wallace-Wells

Are smartphones driving our teens to depression.

By David Wallace-Wells

Opinion Writer

Here is a story. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone, initiating the smartphone revolution that would quickly transform the world. In 2010, it added a front-facing camera, helping shift the social-media landscape toward images, especially selfies. Partly as a result, in the five years that followed, the nature of childhood and especially adolescence was fundamentally changed — a “great rewiring,” in the words of the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt — such that between 2010 and 2015 mental health and well-being plummeted and suffering and despair exploded, particularly among teenage girls.

For young women, rates of hospitalization for nonfatal self-harm in the United States, which had bottomed out in 2009, started to rise again, according to data reported to the C.D.C., taking a leap beginning in 2012 and another beginning in 2016, and producing , over about a decade, an alarming 48 percent increase in such emergency room visits among American girls ages 15 to 19 and a shocking 188 percent increase among girls ages 10 to14.

Here is another story. In 2011, as part of the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new set of guidelines that recommended that teenage girls should be screened annually for depression by their primary care physicians and that same year required that insurance providers cover such screenings in full. In 2015, H.H.S. finally mandated a coding change, proposed by the World Health Organization almost two decades before, that required hospitals to record whether an injury was self-inflicted or accidental — and which seemingly overnight nearly doubled rates for self-harm across all demographic groups. Soon thereafter, the coding of suicidal ideation was also updated. The effect of these bureaucratic changes on hospitalization data presumably varied from place to place. But in one place where it has been studied systematically, New Jersey, where 90 percent of children had health coverage even before the A.C.A., researchers have found that the changes explain nearly all of the state’s apparent upward trend in suicide-related hospital visits, turning what were “essentially flat” trendlines into something that looked like a youth mental health “crisis.”

Could both of these stories be partially true? Of course: Emotional distress among teenagers may be genuinely growing while simultaneous bureaucratic and cultural changes — more focus on mental health, destigmatization, growing comfort with therapy and medication — exaggerate the underlying trends. (This is what Adriana Corredor-Waldron, a co-author of the New Jersey study, believes — that suicidal behavior is distressingly high among teenagers in the United States and that many of our conventional measures are not very reliable to assess changes in suicidal behavior over time.) But over the past several years, Americans worrying over the well-being of teenagers have heard much less about that second story, which emphasizes changes in the broader culture of mental illness, screening guidelines and treatment, than the first one, which suggests smartphones and social-media use explain a whole raft of concerns about the well-being of the country’s youth.

When the smartphone thesis first came to prominence more than six years ago, advanced by Haidt’s sometime collaborator Jean Twenge, there was a fair amount of skepticism from scientists and social scientists and other commentators: Were teenagers really suffering that much? they asked. How much in this messy world could you pin on one piece of technology anyway? But some things have changed since then, including the conventional liberal perspective on the virtues of Big Tech, and, in the past few years, as more data has rolled in and more red flags have been raised about American teenagers — about the culture of college campuses, about the political hopelessness or neuroticism or radicalism or fatalism of teenagers, about a growing political gender divide, about how often they socialize or drink or have sex — a two-part conventional wisdom has taken hold across the pundit class. First, that American teenagers are experiencing a mental health crisis; second, that it is the fault of phones.

“Smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health,” the Financial Times declared last spring. This spring, Haidt’s new book on the subject, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, debuted at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. In its review of the book, The Guardian described the smartphone as “a pocket full of poison,” and in an essay , The New Yorker accepted as a given that Gen Z was in the midst of a “mental health emergency” and that “social media is bad for young people.” “Parents could see their phone-obsessed children changing and succumbing to distress,” The Wall Street Journal reflected . “Now we know the true horror of what happened.”

But, well, do we? Over the past five years, “Is it the phones?” has become “It’s probably the phones,” particularly among an anxious older generation processing bleak-looking charts of teenage mental health on social media as they are scrolling on their own phones. But however much we may think we know about how corrosive screen time is to mental health, the data looks murkier and more ambiguous than the headlines suggest — or than our own private anxieties, as parents and smartphone addicts, seem to tell us.

What do we really know about the state of mental health among teenagers today? Suicide offers the most concrete measure of emotional distress, and rates among American teenagers ages 15 to 19 have indeed risen over the past decade or so, to about 11.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2021 from about 7.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2009. But the American suicide epidemic is not confined to teenagers. In 2022, the rate had increased roughly as much since 2000 for the country as a whole, suggesting a national story both broader and more complicated than one focused on the emotional vulnerabilities of teenagers to Instagram. And among the teenagers of other rich countries, there is essentially no sign of a similar pattern. As Max Roser of Our World in Data recently documented , suicide rates among older teenagers and young adults have held roughly steady or declined over the same time period in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Greece, Poland, Norway and Belgium. In Sweden there were only very small increases.

Is there a stronger distress signal in the data for young women? Yes, somewhat. According to an international analysis by The Economist, suicide rates among young women in 17 wealthy countries have grown since 2003, by about 17 percent, to a 2020 rate of 3.5 suicides per 100,000 people. The rate among young women has always been low, compared with other groups, and among the countries in the Economist data set, the rate among male teenagers, which has hardly grown at all, remains almost twice as high. Among men in their 50s, the rate is more than seven times as high.

In some countries, we see concerning signs of convergence by gender and age, with suicide rates among young women growing closer to other demographic groups. But the pattern, across countries, is quite varied. In Denmark, where smartphone penetration was the highest in the world in 2017, rates of hospitalization for self-harm among 10- to 19-year-olds fell by more than 40 percent between 2008 and 2016. In Germany, there are today barely one-quarter as many suicides among women between 15 and 20 as there were in the early 1980s, and the number has been remarkably flat for more than two decades. In the United States, suicide rates for young men are still three and a half times as high as for young women, the recent increases have been larger in absolute terms among young men than among young women, and suicide rates for all teenagers have been gradually declining since 2018. In 2022, the latest year for which C.D.C. data is available, suicide declined by 18 percent for Americans ages 10 to 14 and 9 percent for those ages 15 to 24.

None of this is to say that everything is fine — that the kids are perfectly all right, that there is no sign at all of worsening mental health among teenagers, or that there isn’t something significant and even potentially damaging about smartphone use and social media. Phones have changed us, and are still changing us, as anyone using one or observing the world through them knows well. But are they generating an obvious mental health crisis?

The picture that emerges from the suicide data is mixed and complicated to parse. Suicide is the hardest-to-dispute measure of despair, but not the most capacious. But while rates of depression and anxiety have grown strikingly for teenagers in certain parts of the world, including the U.S., it’s tricky to disentangle those increases from growing mental-health awareness and destigmatization, and attempts to measure the phenomenon in different ways can yield very different results.

According to data Haidt uses, from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the percent of teenage girls reporting major depressive episodes in the last year grew by about 50 percent between 2005 and 2017, for instance, during which time the share of teenage boys reporting the same grew by roughly 75 percent from a lower level. But in a biannual C.D.C. survey of teenage mental health, the share of teenagers reporting that they had been persistently sad for a period of at least two weeks in the past year grew from only 28.5 percent in 2005 to 31.5 percent in 2017. Two different surveys tracked exactly the same period, and one showed an enormous increase in depression while the other showed almost no change at all.

And if the rise of mood disorders were a straightforward effect of the smartphone, you’d expect to see it everywhere smartphones were, and, as with suicide, you don’t. In Britain, the share of young people who reported “feeling down” or experiencing depression grew from 31 percent in 2012 to 38 percent on the eve of the pandemic and to 41 percent in 2021. That is significant, though by other measures British teenagers appear, if more depressed than they were in the 2000s, not much more depressed than they were in the 1990s.

Overall, when you dig into the country-by-country data, many places seem to be registering increases in depression among teenagers, particularly among the countries of Western Europe and North America. But the trends are hard to disentangle from changes in diagnostic patterns and the medicalization of sadness, as Lucy Foulkes has argued , and the picture varies considerably from country to country. In Canada , for instance, surveys of teenagers’ well-being show a significant decline between 2015 and 2021, particularly among young women; in South Korea rates of depressive episodes among teenagers fell by 35 percent between 2006 and 2018.

Because much of our sense of teenage well-being comes from self-reported surveys, when you ask questions in different ways, the answers vary enormously. Haidt likes to cite data collected as part of an international standardized test program called PISA, which adds a few questions about loneliness at school to its sections covering progress in math, science and reading, and has found a pattern of increasing loneliness over the past decade. But according to the World Happiness Report , life satisfaction among those ages 15 to 24 around the world has been improving pretty steadily since 2013, with more significant gains among women, as the smartphone completed its global takeover, with a slight dip during the first two years of the pandemic. An international review published in 2020, examining more than 900,000 adolescents in 36 countries, showed no change in life satisfaction between 2002 and 2018.

“It doesn’t look like there’s one big uniform thing happening to people’s mental health,” said Andrew Przybylski, a professor at Oxford. “In some particular places, there are some measures moving in the wrong direction. But if I had to describe the global trend over the last decade, I would say there is no uniform trend showing a global crisis, and, where things are getting worse for teenagers, no evidence that it is the result of the spread of technology.”

If Haidt is the public face of worry about teenagers and phones, Przybylski is probably the most prominent skeptic of the thesis. Others include Amy Orben, at the University of Cambridge, who in January told The Guardian, “I think the concern about phones as a singular entity are overblown”; Chris Ferguson, at Stetson University, who is about to publish a new meta-analysis showing no relationship between smartphone use and well-being; and Candice Odgers, of the University of California, Irvine, who published a much-debated review of Haidt in Nature, in which she declared “the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science.”

Does that overstate the case? In a technical sense, I think, no: There may be some concerning changes in the underlying incidence of certain mood disorders among American teenagers over the past couple of decades, but they are hard to separate from changing methods of measuring and addressing mental health and mental illness. There isn’t great data on international trends in teenage suicide — but in those places with good reporting, the rates are generally not worsening — and the trends around anxiety, depression and well-being are ambiguous elsewhere in the world. And the association of those local increases with the rise of the smartphone, while now almost conventional wisdom among people like me, is, among specialists, very much a contested claim. Indeed, even Haidt, who has also emphasized broader changes to the culture of childhood , estimated that social media use is responsible for only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the variation in teenage well-being — which would be a significant correlation, given the complexities of adolescent life and of social science, but is also a much more measured estimate than you tend to see in headlines trumpeting the connection. And many others have arrived at much smaller estimates still.

But this all also raises the complicated question of what exactly we mean by “science,” in the context of social phenomena like these, and what standard of evidence we should be applying when asking whether something qualifies as a “crisis” or “emergency” and what we know about what may have caused it. There is a reason we rarely reduce broad social changes to monocausal explanations, whether we’re talking about the rapid decline of teenage pregnancy in the 2000s, or the spike in youth suicide in the late ’80s and early 1990s, or the rise in crime that began in the 1960s: Lives are far too complex to easily reduce to the influence of single factors, whether the factor is a recession or political conditions or, for that matter, climate breakdown.

To me, the number of places where rates of depression among teenagers are markedly on the rise is a legitimate cause for concern. But it is also worth remembering that, for instance, between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, diagnoses of American youth for bipolar disorder grew about 40-fold , and it is hard to find anyone who believes that change was a true reflection of underlying incidence. And when we find ourselves panicking over charts showing rapid increases in, say, the number of British girls who say they’re often unhappy or feel they are a failure, it’s worth keeping in mind that the charts were probably zoomed in to emphasize the spike, and the increase is only from about 5 percent of teenagers to about 10 percent in the first case, or from about 15 percent to about 20 percent in the second. It may also be the case, as Orben has emphasized , that smartphones and social media may be problematic for some teenagers without doing emotional damage to a majority of them. That’s not to say that in taking in the full scope of the problem, there is nothing there. But overall it is probably less than meets the eye.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Further reading (and listening):

On Jonathan Haidt’s After Babel Substack , a series of admirable responses to critics of “The Anxious Generation” and the smartphone thesis by Haidt, his lead researcher Zach Rausch, and his sometime collaborator Jean Twenge.

In Vox, Eric Levitz weighs the body of evidence for and against the thesis.

Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie deliver a useful overview of the evidence and its limitations on the Studies Show podcast.

Five experts review the evidence for the smartphone hypothesis in The Guardian.

A Substack survey of “diagnostic inflation” and teenage mental health.

138 Smartphone Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best smartphone topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 most interesting smartphone topics to write about, 🥇 good research topics about smartphone, 📌 list of topics to write about smartphone, ❓ smartphone related questions.

• Smartphone Addiction Problem Statement Uncontrolled use of smartphone requires users to review the need to respond to smartphone alerts, deactivate the alerts, and consult their colleagues rather than the phone because such actions can reduce anxiety. Smartphone addiction is […]
• Apple Versus Samsung Smartphones With the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S series smartphones, Samsung competes with Apple’s iPhone. The screen, look and feel of Samsung smartphones is strikingly similar to that of the iPhone.
• Using Smartphones in Learning The other purpose of the study is to understand the recent developments that have been made to the smartphones and how people are able to adopt the changes.
• The Impact of Smartphones on Young People’s Social Life On the one hand, a cellphone enables young people to call their parents when they are in trouble and need help.
• Apple’s Competition in Chinese Smartphone Market The analysis will examine the following forces that affect the company: industry competition, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of consumers, the threat of new entrants, and the threat of substitute products.
• Smartphone Market’s Economic Analysis Thus, the purpose of the current exploration is associated with the analysis of the smartphone market, with the emphasis placed on Samsung and Apple, which are considered significant rivals in the industry.
• Smartphones Role in Lifestyles Changes The fast and quick connectivity of smartphones to the internet provides a wide spectrum of understanding issues that individuals face in their professional and social lives. Creativity and innovation that smartphones facilitate lead to enhanced […]
• Smartphones and Information Technology Systems Management Smartphones such as BlackBerry have applications that increase the accessibility of information, which is critical in enhancing the organisations’ effectiveness particularly in the management of tasks and projects.
• Social Issues: Smartphones’ Positive Impacts In the past, it is expensive to make calls. In the past, it is not convenient to make calls using payphones.
• New Product Feasibility: Tecno N7 Series Android Smartphone According to Abou-Moghli and Abdallah, product feasibility is one of the essential business marketing elements in the market analysis process, which is deemed as a scientific tool of obtaining relevant information pertinent to the provision […]
• Smartphones Affect and Change Modern Life Now, it is time to manage technological addiction and enhance the benefits of using smartphones for new creative designs and high-quality data exchange.
• Factors Affecting Youth’s Behaviors Towards Purchasing a Smartphone Objectives Understand the background of the smartphone industry Analyze the smartphone market trends and the role played by the youths in this marekts Understand reasons why youths buy smartphones through a survey on 100 people […]
• Blackberry Smartphone Consumer Behavior Description of Internal Variables Consumer Personality: the personality of the consumer especially that of the middle class has a significant influence on the purchase decisions. With the brand and the specific outlet in mind, a […]
• Smartphone-Related Cognitive and Ethical Issues The remarkable rise of smartphones and the rapid adoption of mobile computing are two of the most important developments in contemporary information and communication technology.
• Nokia Pure View Smartphone Marketing Strategy In order to achieve the above objectives, other key issues such as the geographical environment where the Nokia targets to market the phone, the target population and the competitors in the market will also have […]
• Internet and Smartphone Effect In this essay, I analyze the arguments advanced by experts in five different publications in order to investigate the consequences of internet and smartphone use on human behavior and relationships during the COVID-19 epidemic.
• The Impact of Smartphones on Mental and Emotional Well-Being Twenge, the author argues that the widespread use of smartphones among teenagers and young adults has led to a decline in their mental and emotional well-being.
• Smartphones: Benefits and Side-Effects The findings have led to a greater understanding of smartphones’ influence on young people of school age, which lays the framework for minimizing the harmful effects of smartphone usage in children and adolescents.
• Smartphone Selection: Decision-Making Assistance For the front camera specifications, both iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 have no significant differences. The price for both the Samsung Galaxy s22 and iPhone 14 is $799, but iPhone 14 Pro Max […]
• Smartphone Addiction in the United States With the advent of phones that have the function of many other gadgets, people began to move away from the real world into the virtual one. This paper examines the essence of the issue of […]
• Smartphones: Development and Popularity The claims that, in the future, smartphones will become the most important electronic devices are outdated by now: they already are.
• Exposure to Smartphones on Learning Development in Preschoolers Parents might allow their children to use smartphones not to be distracted during work, to put children to sleep or to make them eat during the appropriate time.
• Assessing Smartphone Brand Preferences or Use Thus, for other mobile manufacturers to get where the Apple brand is in terms of popularity and market shares, they need to develop revolutionary devices that change who people view and use mobile phones.
• Smartphone Technology and Its Brief History One of the ways that prove smartphone technology has impacted the global economy is the dramatic increase in the capacity to communicate and collaborate.
• How Smartphones Changed Society and the World Introduction of the smartphone to mass public Driven by iPhone created by Apple and Steve Jobs in 2007 Revolutionized the world of communications and information exchange Smartphone went from being a tool to the […]
• Smartphone Blackberry Company Another important feature of the smart phone is the QWERTY keyboard, which is the same as that of the normal computer.
• Smartphones and Generations: Hyper-Connected World First, it is social network, the essence of which is to communicate with other people and peers, as well as to show the details of their lives.
• US Smartphone Market and the Movie Industry In this work tables and other statistical graphics are used to plan, collect and prepare data on the US smartphone market and the movie industry.
• Privacy and Smartphone Apps: Documentary Review The documentary is about the privacy risks posed by the many apps that people are using on their smartphones. If a person is not ready to give access to the information the application wants, they […]
• Apple and Its Product Range in the UK Smartphone Market The history of Apple Inc.is closely tied to that of the technology industry, with the company being one of the best-recognized developers and sellers of smartphones, computers, and software.
• Nokia’s Lumia Smartphone’s Annual Marketing Plan The Nokia Corporation is hopeful of broadening the market of the Lumia series to attract new segments like the lower end of the market, traditionally the stronghold of Nokia with Symbian handsets and feature phones.
• Saudi Developers in Smartphone Applications There are many companies in the world involved in the development of the apps available in the market today. The above successes show the potential that Saudi Arabia has in the smart phone app development.
• Blackberry and iPhone: Exploits of Smartphones The trends in mobile technology changed the entire concept of mobile phones and different models are entering the market. Unauthorized calls from Blackberry and iPhones have, in many cases, caused threats to the security of […]
• Social Media, Smartphones and Confidentiality in the Healthcare System The purpose of the paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of the consequences of the breach of patients’ confidentiality with social media and cell phones, as well as of regulatory acts on the issue.
• Smartphone Market and Consumer Behavior The ability to improve communication, entertainment, and online education by using smartphones is a milestone in the development of the world.
• Smartphones for Work: Advantages and Disadvantages Employees are not bound to the office, and they can negotiate different working hours that are comfortable for them and their customers.
• Smartphone Store Commercial Website: Description Plan Considering the growth of the demand of the smartphone market, the present report provides a description plan for an online smartphone store, in which users will be able to purchase different brands of smartphones.
• Smartphones in Europe & Asia: Marketing Management Therefore, to market the organization producing smartphones for Europe and Asia, one will need to build the competitive advantage that will allow target audiences to pay closer attention to the brand in question. The key […]
• “Are Smartphones Really Destroying the Lives of Teenagers?” by Flora By showing the inconsistencies in research results, the author suggests that the use of smartphones on its own is not a dangerous behavior, but how teens use smartphones could play both a positive and a […]
• Smartphones and Mobile Applications in Business Given the high level of advancement in the field of information and technology, Atluri et al asserted that the tastes and preferences of consumers are likely to change as a result of their increased needs.
• Survival of the Fittest in the Smartphone Industry They strive to estimate the potential for Nokia’s revival in the technology industry, understand the factors that led to the company’s demise, evaluate the factors that led to the prosperity of its rivals and formulate […]
• Risky Business: Students and Smartphones The study builds upon the previous research, and it is made visible in the introduction where the authors referred to the findings of many different studies concerning the issues or mobile security, their prevalence, the […]
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone’s Security Issue The exploding smartphones have shown that, although the Samsung Company’s status and quality of products were supposed to be at the highest levels, they are not trustworthy from the consumers’ point of view.
• Steering Wheel and Smartphone: A Deadly Combination Moreover, being distracted by mobile devices can cause harm not only to their owners but also to total strangers who merely happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Samsung Company Smartphone Marketing The article gives a summary of the Smartphone market controlled by Samsung and the ensuing advertising expenditure from mobile marketing and advertisements because of the strategy employed by Samsung.
• The Smartphone: Anatomy of an Industry The smartphones industry, which has phone makers like Apple, HTC, LG, Samsung, and Lenovo, falls under the Electronic Computer Manufacturing section of the NAICS, with code 33-4111.
• Smartphones for Children: Design and Usage To reduce the above challenges, the software should follow a design that enables the children to use them conveniently. Additionally, the software needs to have features that match the demand presented by the children.
• Technologies: Customized Smartphones for Children The rising demand for the Smartphone took place because of the benefits that it has for both the parents and the children.
• Smartphones and Dumb Behavior On the one hand, the use of smartphones negatively affects development of short-term memory in people. On the other hand, it is also found that the abundance of information negatively affects people.
• Smartphone Ownership in the World In regard with mobile phone technology, this paper examines the growing use of smart phones in the world, and the kind of impact these types of phones have on people’s lives.
• Mobile Application Software Pros & Cons It is the software installed in apple phones such as iphone, the iPod Touch, and the ipad. This is the latest operating system, and it has various advantages.
• Value of Smartphone Security The security standards include the use keystroke dynamics, monitoring the time of key holding, the flight time, multiplayer access regulations, priority regarding the application accessibility.
• Apple Inc. Smartphones Strategic Marketing Plan Within the market segment, the objectives of the marketing mix includes To ensure sales increase by 40% To ensure increase in the sales margin by more than 20% To ensure increase in the total Smartphones […]
• Social Networks Application in Smartphone With the emergence and widespread use social networks applications, the challenge of distance should no longer be a hindrance in a relationship, especially in the wake of Smartphones.
• Apple Inc. Smartphone Marketing Strategy Presentation The popularity of the brand has enabled the company to be successful and become the leader in Smartphones market under a highly competitive and volatile environment.
• Smartphone as a Communication Sector Revolution The Smartphone has done much to pull the world towards the core of digital database. The youth has exploited this utility to download music and movies from the world over and store it for their […]
• Smartphone Technology: Apple, Samsung, and Nokia The iPhone 5 is a windows product that has proved to be among the best selling smart phone in the market.
• Characterizing Smartphone Usage: Diversity and End User Context
• Android and the Smartphone Market
• Consumer Preferences and Implicit Prices of Smartphone Characteristics
• Consequences of Late-Night Smartphone Use
• Competition between the Most Successful Smartphone Companies
• Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
• Employee Monitoring System Using Android Smartphone
• Gender and Income Effects of Smartphone Use
• The Areas of Usage of Smartphones
• What Age Should a Child Get a Smartphone: Pros and Cons of Early Phone Use
• Diagnostic Criteria for Smartphone Addiction
• The Impact of Smartphone Advertising on Consumer Purchase Intention
• Accessing the Smartphone from Remote Location Using Android Application
• Enhancing Patient-Caregivers Relationship: Innovative Use of Smartphone
• The Growth of the Application Market for Smartphones and Tablets
• Increasing Dependence on Computers and Smartphones
• New Trends in the Chinese Smartphone Market
• Barriers, Benefits, and Beliefs of Brain Training Smartphone Apps
• Essential Smartphone Filmmaking Accessories
• Smartphone Use Among Japanese Medical Students
• Changing the Competitive Landscape of the Smartphone Industry
• Fundamental Requirements for Smartphone Commercial Applications Development
• Australian Smartphone Industry Analysis
• Driving Forces for Smartphone Industry
• Focus, Mindfulness, and Using a Smartphone
• Global Mobile Gaming Market Growth Driven by Sprialing Smartphone Sales
• Evaluating the Security of Smartphone Messaging Applications
• History and Future Trends in Smartphone Technology
• The Effect of Frequent Smartphone Use on Social Skills
• Smartphone: Mobile Phone and Excellent Time Killer
• The Impact of Smartphones on Our Culture
• Modeling Habitual and Addictive Behavior With a Smartphone
• Intangible Assets and Value Capture in Global Value Chains: The Smartphone Industry
• Smartphone Addiction in Japanese Youth: Social Isolation and the Social Network
• Mobile Technology: Pros and Cons of California Smartphone Bill
• Oppose Arguing That Smartphone Helps Student on Learning
• Product Features Influencing Purchase Decisions for Smartphones
• The Impact of Smartphone Use by Parents on Their Children
• Product Life Cycles Analysis for Smartphone
• Relationship between Smartphone Usage in Young Adults and Depression
• Sedentary Behavior and Problematic Smartphone Use in Adolescents
• Smartphone Applications and Childhood Obesity
• Using Smartphone Apps for Cognitive Learning in Healthy Aging
• Smartphone Use and Academic Performance
• Social Media and Smartphone Habits
• The Advantages and Disadvantages of Having a Smartphone
• The Emergence, Opportunities, and Importance of Mobile E-Commerce Using Smartphones
• Smartphones and Its Integration into Our Daily Lives
• The Smartphone Revolution and Its Effects on Business
• Can Smartphone Apps That Use Biofeedback Help Reduce Stress?
• What Values and Motives Are the Drivers of Smartphone Use Activity?
• How Are Self-Esteem and Problematic Smartphone Use Among Adolescents Related?
• What Are the Pros and Cons of a Smartphone, Does It Help Our Lives?
• How Does Parents’ Use of Smartphones Affect Their Children?
• Does the Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduce Available Cognitive Capacity?
• What Is the Relationship Between Smartphone Use and Sleep Quality in Chinese Students?
• How Does Smartphone Advertising Affect Consumers’ Willingness to Buy?
• What Factors Influence the Intention to Purchase a Smartphone?
• Is Prolonged Smartphone Use Before Bed Associated with Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Insula?
• What Are the Diagnostic Criteria for Smartphone Addiction?
• How Does Frequent Smartphone Use Affect Social Skills?
• Can Smartphone Applications Serve as Effective Cognitive Training Tools in Healthy Aging?
• What Is the Effect of Smartphone Use and Group Conversation on Pedestrian Speed?
• Should Children Own a Smartphone?
• What Product Features Influence Smartphone Purchase Decisions?
• How Are Young People’s Smartphone Use and Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety Related?
• What Is the Percentage of Smartphone Users in the US?
• Does the Fingerprint Sensor Take Smartphone Security to a Whole New Level?
• How Are Emotional Intelligence, Self-Regulation, and Smartphone Addiction Related to Student Well-Being and Quality of Life?
• What Are the Barriers, Benefits, and Beliefs About Brain Training Apps for Smartphones?
• Could a Person’s Impaired Decision-Making Process Be a Consequence of Smartphone Addiction?
• What Is the Relationship Between Smartphone Application Use and Student Performance?
• How Does the Use of Smartphones Negatively Affect Society?
• What Are the Effects of Late-Night Smartphone Use on Sleep?
• Are Telecom Firms Under Pressure to Keep Up with Smartphone Obsession?
• What Are the Driving Forces for the Smartphone Industry?
• How Are Sedentary Lifestyles and Problematic Smartphone Use Related in Chinese Adolescents?
• Why Do Mobile Users Trust Smartphone Social Networking Services?
• Does Smartphone Use Affect Gender and Income?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Writing 10 (Elkins): Narrow a Research Question

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Strategies for Narrowing Your Research Question

Most scholarly research examines fairly narrow topics and looks at relationships between concepts.  For example, cell phones is a pretty broad topic, but looking at the impact of cell phone manufacturing on the environment might be a more manageable topic.

There are many ways to narrow a topic that is too broad by asking one or more W questions.  Let's use cell phones as an example:

• cell phones and disposal (what)
• cell phones and toxicity (what)
• cell phones and interpersonal relationships (what)
• cell phones and India (where)
• cell phones and corporations (who)
• cell phones and teenagers (who) and distracted driving (what)
• cell phones and precious metals (what) and Rwanda (where)

Use W questions, to develop a research question on the topic of cell phones :

Research Question:   How can precious metals in cell phones be recycled more effectively?

For Discussion: Why is this a successful or unsuccessful research question?  Is it an improvement on this previous question? How beneficial or problematic is cell phone use for our society?

Finding Background Information in Library Databases

CQ Researcher offer in-depth, unbiased coverage of a pressing political or social issue. cover topics in health, international affairs, education, public policy, the environment, technology, and the U.S. economy.

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Too Broad, Too Narrow, or Just Right? See Turn Your Topic into a Question for more examples.

Cell Phone E-Waste

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• The Cell Phone Challenge to Survey Research

National Polls Not Undermined by Growing Cell-Only Population

Table of contents.

• About the Survey

Summary of Findings

A growing number of Americans rely solely on a cell phone for their telephone service, and many more are considering giving up their landline phones. This trend presents a challenge to public opinion polling, which typically relies on a random sample of the population of landline subscribers. A new study of the issue finds that cell-only Americans — an estimated 7%-9% of the general public — are significantly different in many ways from those reachable on a landline. They are younger, less affluent, less likely to be married or to own their home, and more liberal on many political questions.

Yet despite these differences, the absence of this group from traditional telephone surveys has only a minimal impact on the results. Specifically, the study shows that including cell-only respondents with those interviewed from a standard landline sample, and weighting the resulting combined sample to the full U.S. public demographically, changes the overall results of the poll by no more than one percentage point on any of nine key political questions included in the study.

Estimates of the respondents’ likely congressional vote this fall, approval of President Bush, opinion about the decision to go to war in Iraq, and other important social and political measures are unaffected when cell-only respondents are blended into the sample. The relatively small size of the cell-only group, along with the demographic weighting performed when it is combined with the landline sample, accounts for the minimal change in the overall findings. This research effort was undertaken by the Pew Research Center, in conjunction with the Associated Press and AOL, to assess the challenge posed by cell phones to random digit dial surveys. The project entailed a survey of 1,503 U.S. adults, with 752 interviewed in a conventional landline sample and 751 interviewed on their cell phones, using a sample drawn from a nationally representative cell telephone number database. The interviews were conducted March 8-28, 2006 and averaged about 11 minutes in length. Among those interviewed on their cell phones, 200 (27%) said that their cell phone was their only phone. Details about the survey, including response rates, costs, and other issues, are discussed in the body of the report below.

The Cell Phone Challenge

The number of people who have given up their landline telephones and rely solely on a cell phone has been increasing, both in the U.S. and internationally, for several years.

According to the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, the percentage of households paying a cell phone bill but not a landline bill rose from 0.4% in 2000 to 7.8% in the first quarter of 2005.

The National Health Interview Survey estimated that, in the second half of 2005, 7.8% of adults lived in households with only a cell phone. And in the 2004 exit poll by the National Election Pool, 7.1% of voters said they relied solely on cell phones.

As the cell-only population has grown, telephone surveys by Pew and other organizations that rely on landline samples have experienced a sharp decline in the percentage of younger respondents interviewed in their samples. In Pew Research Center surveys over the past five years, the average percentage of those ages 18-34 in unweighted samples declined from 31% in 2000 to 20% through March 2006 (the population parameter was essentially unchanged through this period). This decline is consistent with the fact that the cell-only population is heavily tilted toward young people.

Profile of Cell-Only Respondents

Nearly half of the cell-only respondents in the survey (48%) are under age 30. This compares with just 14% in the landline sample (people reached on a landline) and 21% in the population as a whole, according to government statistics. Other characteristics associated with age are also distinctive in the cell-only population. Nearly three-in-ten (29%) cell-only respondents are married, compared with 57% in the landline sample. And only 24% say they own their own home; in the landline sample, 71% do so. The cell-only population also includes a higher proportion of minorities, especially Hispanics (14% vs. 6% among landline users).

The landline sample includes a higher proportion of college graduates than does the cell phone-only group (36% vs. 28%). But more cell-only users say they have some college experience compared with people who have landlines (by 33% vs. 24%); this may reflect the heavy reliance on cell phones among those currently attending college. The cell-only group also is significantly less affluent — more than half (53%) have annual family incomes of under $30,000, compared with just one-quarter (25%) among the landline sample.

Young Cell vs. Landline Users

Young people who rely exclusively on cell phones also are very different — in their lifestyles and family circumstances — from their landline counterparts of similar age. Far fewer cell-only people under age 30 are married, have children, or are homeowners when compared with landline users in this age category. Related to these factors, young cell-only respondents have significantly lower family incomes than young people in the landline sample.

But young cell-only users and landline users do not differ widely in their political attitudes and partisan affiliation. It is true that the cell-only young respondents are more likely to approve of Bush’s performance in office than are under-30 landline respondents (35% vs. 22%). On most other issues, however, they are more liberal and Democratic than their landline counterparts, though most of the differences do not achieve statistical significance. The modest nature of all of these differences suggests that young people — whether cell-only or not — are more similar than different politically.

Seniors Stick With Landlines

According to data collected by the National Center for Heath Statistics, 53% of Americans use both a landline and a cell phone; 37% have only a landline; and 8% rely only on a cell phone.

Like the cell-only population, Americans who rely solely on a landline are distinctive demographically. Fully 41% are ages 65 and older, compared with 16% of the general public. The landline-only group includes a greater proportion of whites than the general public (82% vs. 73%).

Among dual phone users, there are clear differences between those reached on a cell phone and those contacted on a landline. People who were interviewed on a cell phone are somewhat younger (24% under age 30 vs. 15% among those reached on a landline), more likely to be Hispanic (9% vs. 5%), and slightly more likely to have a child under 18 in the household (43% vs. 35%).

Politically, the landline-only and cell-only groups stand out as more Democratic — both in their congressional vote intention and party affiliation — than do those who have both types of phone service. Yet there are only modest differences in approval of President Bush among these four groups.

More striking is the wide divide in views about gay marriage. About half of the cell-only population (51%) favors allowing gay marriage, compared with 39% of the dual phone users and just a third of those who have only a landline phone (33%).

This difference mostly reflects the age patterns of these samples. Pew surveys have consistently found that young people — who make up about half of the cell-only population — are more supportive of gay marriage than are older Americans.

And Pew surveys show that people ages 65 and older, who make up a disproportionate share of the landline-only group, are the most opposed to gay marriage.

Patterns of Cell Phone Use

As might be expected, a solid majority of respondents in the cell phone sample who also have a landline (62%) say that they make more calls on their cell; nearly half (47%) say they make a lot more phone calls on their cell phone. Dual phone owners from the landline sample use landlines only somewhat more frequently than their cell phones; about half (48%) report making more of their calls on their landline while 42% say they make more calls on their cell phone.

Fully 91% of all respondents in the cell sample keep their cell turned on always or most of the time, compared with 73% of cell owners from the landline sample. A small but notable segment (12%) of cell owners from the landline sample say they rarely turn their cell on or do so only to make a call. Hardly anyone from the cell sample (2%) reported having their cell on this infrequently.

Consequently, heavy users of cell phones are more easily reached and interviewed on their cell phones than are lighter users, resulting in a potential bias on some types of measures. One illustration of this is the fact that 27% of respondents in the cell sample identified themselves as cell-only. But U.S. government estimates indicate that only about 13%-15% of cell owners (approximately 7%-9% of the general public) are cell-only.

People in the cell sample use more cell phone features and options than do cell owners from the landline sample. More people in the cell sample say they use a cell to send and receive text messages (45% cell sample vs. 30% landline sample), take still pictures (39% vs. 22%), and surf the web (18% vs. 13%). Three-quarters of those in the cell sample (75%) have personalized their cell phone by changing the wallpaper or ring tone, compared with 59% of cell owners in the landline sample.

Most people in both samples use only one cell phone, and most do not share their cell phone with others. About one-in-five (19%) of those reached in the cell sample say they regularly use more than one cell phone; the comparable number in the landline sample was 14%. And in each sample, 16% said that another adult regularly answers their cell phone.

Dropping Your Landline?

About a quarter of landline users (23%) say they are very (8%) or somewhat likely (15%) to stop using their landline and switch instead to using only a cell phone. A narrow majority (55%) says they are not likely at all to give up their landline in favor of a cell phone. As may be expected, far more young people than older Americans say they are at least somewhat likely to abandon their landline; 40% of those under age 30 say this compared with 19% of current landline users ages 30 and older.

Implications for Tech-Focused Surveys

Asked about their general opinion of computers and technology, cell-only respondents are much more positive toward computers and technology than are landline-only respondents, and somewhat more positive than other cell phone users who are accessible on a landline.

But there is little difference between the cell-only respondents and cell phone users reached on a landline in their use of the internet and their access to broadband. The only significant difference in internet use is how the respondent gets service: cell-only users are less likely than others to use DSL or a dial-up line.

Challenges of Cell Phone Interviews

In addition to providing a look at the cell-only population, this study was designed to assess the feasibility of conducting a telephone survey in a cell phone sampling frame. The conclusion is that such surveys are feasible, but they are more difficult and expensive to conduct than landline surveys.

Because most cell phone users have to pay for incoming calls (or use pre-paid minutes for them), a $10 incentive was offered only to respondents in the cell phone sample. Despite this inducement, gaining cooperation from people on cell phones was notably more difficult than for those on a landline phone.

The response rate was 30% in the landline frame but only 20% in the cell phone frame. It was actually easier to make contact with a respondent through the cell phone frame (the contact rate was 76% in the cell frame vs. 68% in the landline frame). But that greater accessibility did not translate into more cooperation. Half of the people reached in the landline sample (50%) cooperated with the interview, compared with roughly a quarter (28%) of those reached in the cell phone sample.

Aside from difficulties in gaining cooperation, the process of sampling cell phone numbers proved to be reasonably efficient. More of the cell phone numbers (59%) were connected to eligible respondents than were numbers in the landline sample (43%).

Interviewing people on cell phones presents several challenges that require new procedures and have implications for overall costs. Among the most important of these is the fact that federal law prohibits the use of automated dialing devices when calling cell phones; thus each number in the cell phone sample had to be dialed manually.

The $10 incentive offer incurred additional costs. An overwhelming majority of cell phone respondents who completed the interview (86%) accepted this offer and provided a mailing address to which the incentive was sent. In addition to the money paid to the respondent, the use of an incentive also incurs additional administrative work that raises the cost of the survey.

Results from the study suggest that interviews on a cell phone take about the same amount of time to complete as interviews on a landline phone. The same questionnaire was administered to both samples, and the median length was 11 minutes (mean = 11.8) for the cell phone sample and 10 minutes (mean = 10.2) for the landline respondents who reported owning a cell. Most of the small difference in average length between the two sampling frames is likely due to the extra time spent by the cell sample respondents in providing a mailing address for mailing the $10 incentive.

Cell phones tend to be personal devices, and many adolescents and younger children have their own phone. One consequence of this is that more people reached in the cell frame turned out to be ineligible because of their age than is typically the case in a household-based landline sample. Of people contacted in the cell phone frame, 45 cases were dropped from the study because the respondent was under 18. In the landline sample, only 6 cases were dropped because the sampled telephones were used exclusively by children.

Because people may not be accustomed to speaking with an unknown caller on their cell phone, two other modifications in Pew’s regular protocol were used. The survey introduction included the acknowledgement that the respondent had been reached on a cell phone, and an immediate question as to whether it was safe to do an interview at that time. If the interviewer reached voice mail, a message was left explaining the purpose of the survey along with a toll-free number for the respondent to call and complete the interview at their convenience. Approximately 20 of the 751 respondents in the cell phone survey completed the interview in this way.

Data collection costs (apart from overall study design, programming, and analysis costs) were slightly more than twice as high for the cell phone sample as for the landline sample. Adding in the costs of administering and paying the $10 incentive, the total costs of interviewing the cell phone sample were approximately 2.4 times the cost of the landline sample.

Cell Phone Respondents Not More Distracted

According to the interviewers working on the survey, the cell phone respondents were as focused and cooperative as those reached on a landline telephone. The vast majority (93%) of those surveyed on their cell phone demonstrated good or very good cooperation. This compares with 79% of those from the landline sample.

In addition to being cooperative, the cell phone respondents were also relatively focused on the survey task. In each sample only about 10% seemed somewhat or very distracted (8% cell phone vs. 11% landline, respectively), according to interviewers who conducted the survey. Likewise, when interviewers recorded whether it sounded as though the respondent had been doing another activity during the survey, results were quite similar for the two samples. About one-in-five of those from the cell phone sample (20%) and the landline sample (17%) were preparing a meal, watching television, shopping, exchanging comments with another person, or engaged in another activity.

Demographics of the Complete Cell and Landline Samples

People reached in the cell sample have a considerably different demographic profile from those reached in the landline sample, especially with respect to sex, race, age, education, and home ownership. On many variables, the landline sample was closer to the population parameter than the cell sample, though on some measures the cell sample picks up certain kinds of respondents that the landline samples under-represent.

A majority of those interviewed in the cell sample (55%) were men. Most landline surveys interview too few men, and require quotas or other techniques to obtain the proper proportion of men vs. women. As noted earlier, most landline surveys have too few young people in their samples (7% under age 25, vs. 13% in the population), but the cell phone sample had too many (21%). Conversely, the landline sample has too many older respondents (23% are 65 and older, vs. 16% in the population), while the cell phone sample had too few (just 8%).

The cell sample also proved to be effective at reaching African Americans, as 13% of the sample identified themselves as black. Landline samples often fall short of the population parameter (11%), though the landline sample in this project was very close (10%).

Although the survey was conducted only in English, fully 11% of the cell phone sample was Hispanic compared to just 6% of the landline frame sample. Hispanics constitute approximately 12% of the U.S. population.

Both samples include too many people with college experience, compared with the U.S. population. U.S. government figures show that 26% of the public has at least a four-year college degree, compared with 36% in the landline sample and 35% in the cell sample.

The people reached through these two samples differ in other ways as well. Over seven-in-ten (71%) of those interviewed from the landline sample report being a homeowner compared with closer to half (57%) of those reached on a cell phone. (The U.S. government estimates that 69% of the public are homeowners.)

In addition, fewer of the landline sample respondents were parents of children under 18 — a finding that likely reflects the presence of more young adults in the cell phone sample. At the same time, however, the samples were fairly similar in the percentage of respondents who were married (57% in the landline sample vs. 52% in cell sample — compared with 59% from U.S. government data), though the mix of unmarried people is very different in the two samples. One-third (33%) of the cell sample reported having never been married, compared with just 18% in the landline sample; according to the government, 25% of the adult population has never been married.

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