“This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media.”
When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.”
Up to 95% of young people aged 13-17 report using a social media platform. Nearly two thirds of teenagers report using social media every day and one third report using social media “almost constantly.
Key findings:
UK adults hugely underestimate how often they check their phones, thinking they check them 25 times a day on average, when studies suggest the reality is up to 80 times a day.1
50% say despite their best efforts they sometimes can’t stop checking their smartphones when they should be focusing on other things, with this proving a struggle for middle-aged people as well as the young.
People are more likely than not to feel their attention span is shorter than it used to be (49% vs 23%).
But these perceptions may be linked to some commonly believed myths about attention spans – and many of us still see significant positive impacts from technology and don’t put all the blame on big tech.
Average reading scores for U.S. high school seniors have dropped to their lowest levels since 1992. This 10-point decline from the 1992 benchmark indicates a significant, long-term trend in reduced literacy skills, accelerated by, but pre-dating, the pandemic.
“I don’t think we have smoking gun evidence that the rise of screen-based childhood is a direct contributor to the literacy trends that we’re seeing. But I’m willing to put it very high on my list of potential suspects.” – Martin West, academic dean and a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the deputy director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School.
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
