By David Leonhardt, Photo: Annie Flanagan/The New York Times, The New York Times, February 27, 2023
Digital technology has caused the biggest changes to teenage life in many decades. Typical American teenagers spend about half of their waking hours on their smartphones. They are on the phones when they are alone at home and when they are hanging out with friends.
When I compare my own teenage years in the 1980s with those of my parents in the 1950s and ’60s, I realize how much more rapidly habits have changed in the past 15 years than in the previous 50 years. My teenage experiences and those of my parents weren’t all that different. We talked on the telephone, drove cars, watched movies, went to parties and so on. My children’s social rhythms look much different.
This transformation has surely had broader consequences. To put it another way, if there have been major swings in teenage well-being over the past 15 years — good or bad — we should assume that the reshaping of life by digital technology has helped cause them.
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