Smartphone use leads to hallucinations, detachment from reality, aggression in 13-year-olds: Study

Smartphones are making teenagers more aggressive, detached from reality and causing them to hallucinate, according to a new study.

Scientists concluded that the younger a person starts using a phone, the more likely they are to be crippled by a host of psychological illnesses, after surveying 10,500 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 from the US and India for the study, from Sapien Labs.

“People don’t fully appreciate that hyper-real and hyper-immersive screen experiences can blur reality at key developmental stages,” addiction psychologist Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, who was not part of the team that did the study, told The Post.

More than a third of 13-year-olds surveyed said they felt aggression, while a fifth experienced hallucinations, the Sapien Labs survey showed.

“Their digital world can compromise their ability to discern what is real and what is not. A hallucination by any other name.

“Screen time basically acts as a toxin that inhibits brain development and social development,” Kardaras explained. “The younger a child is when they are given a device, the higher the likelihood of mental health problems later.”

Teens surveyed for The Youth Mind: Rising Aggression and Anger fared significantly worse than Gen Zers in the Sapien Labs database, and younger ages were more likely to suffer from aggression, anger and hallucinations than their peers their oldest.

Social media use was found to be associated with increased aggression, strange thoughts, detachment from reality and hallucinations. Brian – stock.adobe.com
Exposure to smartphones from a young age leads to a host of mental health problems, study finds – and scientists say the effects are getting worse. KMPZZZ – stock.adobe.com
Tara Thiagarajan, founder and principal scientist of Sapien Labs, which has researched the effect of cell phones on young people. Sapien Labs

A staggering 37% of 13-year-olds reported experiencing aggression, compared to 27% of 17-year-olds.

Alarmingly, 20% of 13-year-olds say they suffer from hallucinations, compared to 12% of 17-year-olds.

“While today’s 17-year-olds typically got a phone at age 11 or 12, today’s 13-year-olds got their phones at age 10,” the report noted.

Respondents also reported that they may harm themselves. 42% of American girls and 27% of boys aged 13 to 17 admitted to having problems with suicidal thoughts.

Most of the teenagers surveyed said they had feelings of hopelessness, guilt, anxiety and strange unwanted thoughts. More than 40% reported a sense of detachment from reality, mood swings, withdrawal and traumatic flashbacks.

Researchers also warned that phones are causing children to withdraw from society.

A Tennessee teenager asked for her phone back and then pepper-sprayed her teacher when he refused. Reddit
Then, the high school student pepper-sprayed the teacher when he did not return the confiscated cell phone. Reddit

“Once you have a phone, you spend a lot less time with personal interaction, and the less personal interaction you have, the less integrated you are into the real social fabric,” Sapien Labs principal scientist Tara Thiagarajan told The Post. . .

“You’re no longer connected the way people have been connected for hundreds of thousands of years.”

Kardaras was also not surprised that the aggression was linked to phone use.

He runs the technology addiction recovery center Omega Recovery in Austin, where children are often admitted after violently attacking their parents to get their phones away.

Cover of The Youth Mind: Rising Aggression and Anger study which surveyed 10,500 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17.
Addiction expert Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, who says his clinic often sees children who violently attack their parents to get their phones away. Courtesy of Dr. Nicholas Kardaras

Children across the country have also attacked their teachers at school after having their devices confiscated, with one Tennessee teacher even pepper-spraying a student after he took her cellphone.

The CDC also warned that in 2023, teenage girls are at increased risk of violence — often at the hands of each other. Sapien Labs also showed that the increase in aggression is occurring disproportionately in females, according to their research.

“There’s a pretty rapid increase right now in kids experiencing actual school violence and kids fearing for their safety,” Thiagarajan said. “This is something that everyone should sit up and take note of.”

Young women are more likely to report a negative mental health status than their male counterparts. DimaBerlin – stock.adobe.com
The study found that children who received phones at younger ages were more likely to have emotional problems later. Adobe Stock

She pointed to a December school shooting in Wisconsin that was allegedly perpetrated by a teenage girl. It has been 45 years since a minor committed a school shooting.

The shooter, Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15, was known to have spent much of her life online and exposed extremist views online, but authorities are still looking for a motive for her shooting, after to which she returned the gun. on herself.

Overall, 65% of female respondents were considered “distressed or struggling in a way that significantly impairs their ability to function effectively in the world and would be a clinical concern,” according to the report.

There is no indication that this trend of steadily deteriorating mental health will slow, according to the researchers, who note that children continue to be given devices at younger and younger ages, and it is not uncommon today for toddlers be given access to the iPad or their parents. iPhone.

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Image Source : nypost.com

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