Are there any four words that better capture parenting teens at this point in history than “get off your phone?” Parents often delay getting their child a smartphone for as long as possible, as they try to get the balance right between thinking phones are generally “a bad thing”, wanting to know their child is safe, and not wanting them to be left out when “everyone else has one”. We parents then seem to spend the next decade telling them to get off it.

In my role as a child and adolescent psychologist, phone use is often one of the first things parents and grandparents tell me about their teenager, and almost invariably posit it as the root of all evil in that child’s life: the cause of all their problems and distress.

So are phones so bad for young people? And if so, what can we do about it? In my clinical work and for my book You Don’t Understand Me: A Young Woman’s Guide to Life, I’ve had to try to understand how young people use their phones and what impact this has on them. What is the good, the bad and the ugly of phone use?

Let’s get the bad news over with first. As a psychologist, one of the things I most worry about with young people’s phone use is hyped-up emotions. We all know that if we are forced to take a break when we are feeling angry, sad or worried, with time, we can manage to restore our emotional equilibrium. We calm down. But with a phone constantly in a young person’s hand, it fuels the emotional fire (we see this with older people on Twitter, too). Instant communication can spiral us all into more extreme emotional positions.  

For young people, the nature of the anxiety and sadness remains much the same: Do people like me? Will I do okay in school and in the future? Will I be good enough? I think of the phone as a typhoon that can powerfully stir up these worries and intensify distress. 

Instant communication can also lead to unrealistic expectations. The phone can make young people think they should be constantly available. As adults we know how stressful this can be in our work lives, but for teenagers their developmental life drive is to connect constantly to their peers. The need to be there 24/7 for friends can lead to the phone getting in the way of doing things that are good for their mental and physical health, such as eating properly, sleeping, taking exercise and being outside.  

What about the ugly? Another worry of mine is young women’s judgment of their looks. There is lots of research that says viewing images of perfect bodies has a negative impact on body satisfaction. It makes no difference if the images are labelled as doctored, or if they are fitness images, rather than being about beauty and slimness – young women still feel body dissatisfaction. They know that the images are filtered, manipulated and curated, but they still compare their own unfiltered, unmade-up, least flattering shot to them, and then evaluate themselves negatively.