A Week in the Life of a Young Person's Smartphone Use

2023

Constant

Companion:

A Week in the Life of a Young Person's

Smartphone Use

Constant Companion:

A Week in the Life of a Young Person's

Smartphone Use

COMMON SENSE IS GRATEFUL FOR THE GENEROUS SUPPORT AND

UNDERWRITING THAT FUNDED THIS RESEARCH REPORT

Bezos Family Foundation

Jennifer Caldwell and John H.N. Fisher

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Margaret and Will Hearst

A Letter from Our Founder

Smartphones have become a constant companion in our teens' lives. From connection

with family and friends to entertainment and background noise, young people rely on their

smartphones for different types of mental health support, relaxation, and distraction—at

home and at school, and during the day and night.

This year, Common Sense has focused our research efforts on hearing directly from young

people about both the role and the impact of media and technology in their lives. This

report fills a gap in our understanding of how teens actually use their smartphones,

combining data from kids' phones themselves with feedback from our Youth Advisory

Council. And they told us that the draw of their smartphone is both complicated and

powerful. Here's what else we learned from this report:

• Teens are fielding a barrage of notifications from the apps on their phones. On a

typical day, participants received a median of 237 notifications. Of those, about a

quarter arrived during the school day, and 5% at night.

• School phone use is common, and policies are inconsistent. During school hours

almost all of the participants used their phones at least once, for a median of 43

minutes. But they also reported that policies about phone use in schools vary—some-

times even from classroom to classroom—and aren't always enforced.

• Smartphones both help and hurt sleep. Over half of participants used their phones on

school nights, often to listen to music to wind down or get to sleep. But sometimes

their days are so busy that they only get to relax with their phone at bedtime, and that

pushes sleep later.

The good news is, many young people reported they have grown savvier about their

phone's attempts to draw them in, and they're taking steps to protect their digital well-

being, like setting time limits and prioritizing certain types of notifications. But the

business model of these apps and devices hinges upon young people picking up their

phones and engaging with them as much as possible, and it's clear that teens are struggling

to set boundaries.

Research like this helps shed light on what young people are really doing on their phones,

and allows families, educators, and leaders to better understand where and when to

provide support. But the industry can take steps to recognize that young people need to

be able to use their phones for all of their important benefits but without the challenges

that negative content, persuasive design, and aggressive business models pose to digital

well-being.

At Common Sense, we will continue to provide parents, caregivers, educators, industry

leaders, and policymakers with the tools, resources, research, and information they need

to help kids build healthier relationships with the technology in their lives. And it's our

hope that this research allows for continued focus on youth voices in our mission to make

the digital world work better for kids everywhere.

James P. Steyer,

Founder and CEO

Suggested citation: Radesky, J., Weeks, H.M., Schaller, A., Robb, M., Mann, S., and Lenhart, A. (2023). Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young Person's

Smartphone Use. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

Credits

Authors: Jenny S. Radesky, M.D., Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School

Heidi M. Weeks, Ph.D., Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Michigan School

of Public Health

Alexandria Schaller, B.A., Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School

Michael B. Robb, Ph.D., Former Head of Research, Common Sense Media

Supreet Mann, Ph.D., Director of Research, Common Sense Media

Amanda Lenhart, M.A., Head of Research, Common Sense Media

Copy editors: Christopher Dare and Jennifer Robb

Designers: Emely Garcia and Chris Arth

Acknowledgments: This research was supported by Common Sense Media. We thank Candice Odgers

for consultative assistance with survey measures. We also thank Andy Chen for

assistance collecting app store data.

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Main Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Supplemental Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Smartphones entered the lives of children and adolescents in

2007. Compared to earlier devices (flip phones), smartphones

allowed more than just texting and taking photos. Young

people could now browse the internet, choose from thou-

sands of mobile applications ("apps") and games, and connect

immediately with their communities through social plat-

forms—from anywhere.

As internet speeds and computing power increased exponen-

tially over the past 15 years, smartphones have become even

more powerful and versatile, allowing livestreaming, multi-

player gaming, and creation and distribution of content. Over

a relatively short period of time, these handheld computers

have become a disruptive force in the lives of young people, in

positive and negative ways that adults who grew up with land-

lines may not fully grasp.

Getting a smartphone is now a rite of passage for most chil-

dren and adolescents in the United States. According to

Common Sense Research, 43% of tweens (age 8 to 12) and

88% to 95% of teens (age 13 to 18) have their own smartphone

(Rideout et al., 2022; Pew 2022). About half of U.S. children

get their first smartphone by age 11 (Rideout et al., 2022).

Young people describe a range of supportive and stressful

experiences with their smartphones—some wish they hadn't

gotten one so early, while also describing it as an appendage

that they cannot live without (Moreno et al., 2019). The deci-

sion of when to get a smartphone, and negotiations about

rules and boundaries around smartphone use, are frequent

sources of parental stress and family arguments (Mathes et al.,

2021; Francis et al., 2021; Hiniker, Schoenebeck, & Kientz,

2016).

Several factors contribute to young people's attachment to

their phones. First, it is developmentally appropriate for ado-

lescents to seek connection and feedback from their friends

and communities, and to want to do so on a frequent basis.

Children and adolescents have developmentally adaptive

curiosity about information, culture, entertainment, and

stories that help them make sense of their world.

However, the design and marketing choices made by technol-

ogy companies to meet their business objectives also make it

challenging for young users to separate from their smart-

phones. More time spent on mobile apps translates to more

advertising revenue and in-app purchases, so many apps

contain persuasive design features to encourage prolonged

engagement (Radesky et al., 2022; 5 Rights Foundation,

2021). These design features include encouragement of

content creation (so there is always more content to recom-

mend to users), reduction of friction (e.g., the swipe-up

movement that allows a user to easily move on to another

video), time pressure (e.g., notifications urging users to watch

a livestream before it stops), quantified reinforcers (e.g., likes,

shares, virtual currency), or algorithmic recommendations

that analyze a user's digital behavior to predict what they

might click on next.

Underlying these design features are marketing incentives to

keep young people on their phones—and ideally win their

brand alliance. Smartphones are an unprecedented marketing

vehicle because they are taken everywhere and provide

insight into users' daily behavior, preferences, and social net-

works. The data traces recorded by smartphones (such as

location, purchases, likes, and shares) allow businesses to

create user profiles, which can then be sold or used to earn

revenue through targeted advertising.

Considering the competing interests of 1) a business model

that prioritizes engagement and 2) a developing adolescent

human user with various passions, drives, and obligations, it is

not surprising that both young people and their parents com-

plain of feeling like they spend more time on their phones than

they intend (Pew 2022; James & Weinstein, 2022).

Smartphones are nearly ubiquitous in the life of U.S. adoles-

cents, but research on how they are used has been elusive.

This research typically relies on self-reporting of daily usage

habits, momentary reports (e.g., pinging participants through-

out their day to assess moment-to-moment changes in media

use), or asking young users what they experience through

their phones (e.g., social support or bullying; toxic or inspira-

tional content). However, if we want to interrogate the role of

Introduction

To that end, we enrolled 203 11- to 17-year-olds in the United

States to let us track their smartphone use for one week by

installing Chronicle, a study app (Radesky et al., 2020). This

app runs unobtrusively in the background and provides con-

tinuous data about which apps were used and when, how

many pickups and notifications occurred, and how much

smartphones were used during the school day and overnight

hours. The study was conducted with Android phone users

only, because Apple device tracking does not share with the

research community the names of specific non-Apple apps

that young people commonly use (e.g., social media apps,

mobile games).

After analyzing results, we reviewed them with 15 members

of the 2023 Common Sense Youth Advisory Council, a group

of 14- to 18-year-olds of various races/ethnicities and genders

who live in communities across the United States. These youth

advisors worked with Common Sense from January to May

2023, but their phones were not tracked as part of the study.

Through these conversations, we gained insights into the push

and pull that adolescents feel with their phones, with the ulti-

mate goal of imagining how smartphones could be designed to

support the agency of younger users.

Along with our main findings, this report includes relevant and

actionable takeaways for parents and policymakers, as well as

discussion prompts for talking with kids about their some-

times complicated relationships with smartphones.

smartphones—and all of their complex uses in the daily lives of

young people, from communication to entertainment, creativ-

ity, marketing, and productivity—then we need research

methods that measure the behavior of phones. This is possible

through the harnessing of data that is already collected by

technology companies and marketing firms to monitor smart-

phone users, but that is not typically shared with researchers

on an individual-user basis.

For this study, we used software to collect data from the

smartphones of a diverse sample of about 200 11- to 17-year-

olds. We then interpreted this data with assistance from an

advisory council of young people to understand the nuanced

relationships that young people develop with their

smartphones.

Our research aimed to address the following questions:

• How much time are preadolescents and adolescents

spending on their smartphones?

• Which types of apps do they use most frequently and for

the longest periods of time, and why?

• Are they accessing apps intended for older audiences?

• How many notifications are they receiving per day, and

from which apps?

• How much smartphone use occurs during school hours,

and why?

• How much smartphone use occurs at night, and why?

• How much tension or frustration are preadolescents and

adolescents experiencing about their smartphones, and

how do they manage this?

• Are there new insights about youth experiences and

practices with smartphones that could lead to better

design to improve young people's well-being?

Key Findings

The key findings in this report combine

granular data about young people's smart-

phone use with teens' own interpretation of

the role that these devices play in their lives.

This unique perspective gives us a glimpse

into teens' relationships with their devices,

including the attraction that smartphones

and apps hold for teens, the corresponding

pressures, and the strategies they use

(whether barriers, rules, or friction) to

manage smartphone use in their day-to-day

experiences.

1. The smartphone is a constant

companion, both providing background

buzz and encouraging regular pickups

over the more than four hours of teen

smartphone use on an average day.

Smartphones are integrated into young people's lives in ways

that help them connect with friends, give their brain a rest, or

help them laugh and calm down during their busy days. On a

typical day, the participants in our study used their smart-

phones for a median of almost four and a half hours. However,

simply showing average daily smartphone duration across our

sample doesn't tell the whole story. Some participants used

their phones for only a few minutes per day, while others aver-

aged over 16 hours a day (Figure 1).

Adolescents' smartphone use doesn't always match adults'

narrative of "teens always staring at their screens." In addition

to more active use, some teens in our focus groups talked

about how they also use their smartphones to provide a back-

ground "buzz" by playing movies, videos, or music while they

do homework or laundry.

And for most of the teens in our sample, their smartphones

were close at hand and picked up and checked frequently

throughout the day—a median of 51 times per day, ranging

from two to 498 times per day. Younger participants (11- to

12-year-olds) tended to pick up their phones less frequently

each day, while adolescents (age 13 and older) were more

likely to check their phone over 100 times per day (Figure 2).

Teens in our focus groups told us that younger smartphone

users usually have more rules or restrictions placed on their

use, while older teens are given more independence as they

learn the appropriate time and place to use their phone.

Younger teens may be less likely to have peers with smart-

phones, and fewer friends to contact.

FIGURE 1. Distribution of average daily duration of

smartphone use

>10 hours

9-10 hours

8-9 hours

7-8 hours

6-7 hours

5-6 hours

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

0-30 min

12%

16%

15%

FIGURE 2. Average daily smartphone pickups, by

participant age

26−50

0−25

16−17

13−15

11−12

28%

25%

16%

36%

15%

12%

51−100

29%

27%

28%

>200

101−150

16%

24%

151−200

20%

2. Phone use during school hours is

nearly universal but varies widely,

reflecting a patchwork of different

school policies.

Smartphone use at schools is fairly widespread, and it

varies based on school rules, teacher and staff enforce-

ment, and student compliance. During school hours

(Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., excluding holi-

days), 97% of participants used their phones, for a median

of 43 minutes (ranging from less than one minute to six and

a half hours). The median number of pickups was 13 per

school day, ranging from less than one to 229. The app cat-

egories that took up the highest proportion of time during

school hours were social media (32% of smartphone use

during school hours), gaming (17%), and YouTube (26%),

among participants who used those app categories (Figure 3).

Youth advisors told us that schools have a wide variety of poli-

cies, and variable enforcement within those policies, which

students may or may not follow:

FIGURE 3. Median* duration of use of different smartphone

app categories during school hours**

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over.

**Includes only participants who used that category of apps during specified

time frame.

Parent Controls (n=19)

Email (n=69)

Education (n=51)

Shopping (n=37)

Calls (n=132)

Reading (n=23)

Music and Audio (n=81)

Art and Photos (n=133)

Streaming Video (n=30)

Messaging (n=146)

Browser (n=150)

Gaming (n=119)

YouTube (n=111)

Social Media (n=126)

Average School Day Minutes (Median)

20100

For my school, we do have a phone policy and

we're not technically allowed to have it out during

class, but a lot of people do in spite of that. And

definitely, I think if you track kids at my school,

their phone usage, you would definitely see them

checking their phones, and then checking

Snapchat during class.

—10th grader

It's kind of up to teacher discretion. So at the

beginning of the year, they said it's not allowed,

but it's really up to each teacher whether they

allow it in the room or not. A lot of them do.

—11th grader

3. Notifications are plentiful, with

half of our participants receiving 237

or more per day. These interruptions

are both delightful and distracting,

leading many young users to feel the

need to manage what they get notified

of, and when.

While phone pickups signify how often a user is engaging with

their phone, notifications show us how often a phone tries to

engage its user. On a typical day, participants received a

median of 237 notifications. Of the notifications delivered to

their phone, participants saw or engaged with about a quarter

(median 46 per day). Notification frequency varied widely,

with maximums of over 4,500 delivered and over 1,200 seen

(Figures 4 and 5).

About a quarter (23%) of notifications arrived during school

hours, and about 5% during school night hours, suggesting

that phones and apps could do a better job of eliminating

unnecessary notifications at times of day that are more dis-

ruptive to young people. Very few participants received no

notifications at all during school hours or school night hours.

Because notifications are so numerous and occur day and

night, they require management by young users. Our youth

advisors described different approaches to managing these

interruptions. They said it was essential to filter or block noti-

fications, particularly from "spam" content, favoring

notifications of direct messages (DMs) from people.

Snapchat and Discord ranked highest in the number of notifi-

cations sent to participants in a typical day, with some

participants receiving hundreds of messages from these plat-

forms. But our youth council members noted that they've

become savvy to the ways in which some apps try to pull them

in with frivolous notifications.

Yeah, for me, I have notifications on for the apps

that are messaging apps, but then for the other

ones, I don't have notifications on for YouTube or

Instagram … For me, I don't like the notifications

that just tell you to go back on the app or just

something random like that, like an update or

something. I don't really care about those ones.

But the ones I do like getting are the ones that are

from the messaging apps, like if someone sends

me a text, I wanna know what it says.

—10th grader

FIGURE 4. Average daily notifications received by

smartphones

FIGURE 5. Average daily notifications seen by the user

>500

401-500

301-400

201-300

101-200

0-100

20%

23%

20%

>200

151-200

101-150

51-100

26-50

0-25

28%

24%

21%

12%

I also think the TikTok algorithm is just way better

than any of the others. Even Instagram reels and

then YouTube Shorts is like the same thing as

TikTok, but the algorithm for TikTok is just way

more addicting, I feel like [it]… draws you in more,

and it also adapts really quickly. So if I skip a few

of the same type of video, it'll stop playing that

pretty quickly … I think it just happens naturally.

You just scroll without really looking at a certain

type of video a few times and then you'll see it

adapts and gives you some other type.

—11th grader

4. TikTok is irresistible, offering

bite-size pleasure and low-friction

interaction that quickly adapts to

the user's interests or mood.

TikTok was one of the most popular and longest-duration apps

used in the sample of 11- to 17-year-olds whose phones we

tracked. TikTok was used by 50% of our participants, for a

median of one hour and 52 minutes per day. Compared to

other social media apps, TikTok users were more likely to

spend several hours per day using it (upwards of seven hours

a day), often during school hours and overnight. In contrast,

the longest amount of time spent on Snapchat and Instagram

was around three hours per day.

Youth advisors explained to us that TikTok provides an experi-

ence that other social or video-sharing platforms don't. TikTok

was described as "easy" because videos simply start to play—

the user doesn't have to make any decisions, so there's no

friction. Adolescents we talked to said that the TikTok algo-

rithm "knows" them so well, they can expect that they will

likely find something fun to watch. If the user isn't interested

in the video that starts to play, the app quickly adapts to some-

thing more engaging or that fits their mood or desires. Finally,

the videos are short, so they provide small doses of pleasure

when young people need a break but don't have a lot of time.

Then TikTok, I honestly feel just because it's so

easy to feel, 'Oh, I only have 10 minutes. Let me

get onto TikTok right now 'cause I don't really

have time for anything else.' Because it provides

kind of instant entertainment, you don't really

have to go in, like on YouTube you have to go in,

you have to search for something, you have to

find a video that you wanna watch. And on

TikTok it's really just there. You can open it kind

of whenever you want. And even on a short

amount of time, you can still watch at least two

or three videos.

—11th grader

FIGURE 6. Median* duration of use of different smartphone

app categories during school nights**

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over.

**Includes only participants who used that category of apps during specified

time frame.

Parent Controls (n=3)

Email (n=11)

Education (n=5)

Shopping (n=11)

Calls (n=9)

Reading (n=6)

Music and Audio (n=18)

Art and Photos (n=24)

Streaming Video (n=14)

Messaging (n=27)

Browser (n=49)

Gaming (n=32)

YouTube (n=54)

Social Media (n=60)

Average School Night Minutes (Median)

20100

5. Over half of teens used their phones

overnight on school nights, primarily

for social media, gaming, or YouTube.

We defined school night usage as any use Monday through

Friday during the hours of midnight to 5 a.m. (excluding holi-

days). Over half of participants (59%) used their phones on

school nights, with a median of about 20 minutes per night,

although use ranged from less than a minute to five hours.

Similarly, 67% of participants had pickups on school nights,

with a median of one per night, though at least one participant

picked up their phone 18 times on a typical school night.

App categories that took up the highest proportion of school

night use included YouTube (47% of smartphone usage on

school nights), social media (39%), gaming (29%), and reading

(18%), among participants who used those app categories.

YouTube appeared to be the longest-running app due to

several participants running it overnight, likely with music or

white noise playing. TikTok was also commonly used in the

overnight hours on school nights, but youth advisors reported

that TikTok can be overstimulating and lead to difficulties in

falling asleep.

I might say that for certain apps, like TikTok,

it's really hard to fall asleep once you use it close

to when you're gonna go to sleep. I can't use it

within an hour, or else I'd struggle … and then

I'll just get back on the app 'cause I'm not

sleeping anyway.

—10th grader

For me, even throughout the day, I keep 'do not

disturb' on, not even because I wanna not

respond to people or anything like that. I like

being able to not have my phone buzzing, but

being able to click on ... I don't know if I can show

you guys, but like here, you see this. Like you

have to click on that to see all of the notifications

that people have sent or everything that ... All the

notifications that you would have gotten if you

weren't on 'do not disturb.' For me, I like the extra

step because then it's like me having to do more

work to be on my phone, and I don't know, I feel

like it's a little strategy for me.

—11th grader

6. Smartphones can allow access

to age-inappropriate experiences,

including social media for kids under

13 and apps with mature/adult-only

ratings.

Of 85 participants who were under age 13, 68% used social

media apps, and they all used at least one app rated "Teen" or

higher. The most popular social platforms among 11- to

12-year-olds were TikTok (used by 47%), Snapchat (31%),

Discord (25%), Instagram (16%), Facebook (16%), and

Pinterest (14%).

In addition, almost half (45%) of our participants used apps

with mature (17+) or adult only (18+) ratings, such as Pornhub,

fantasy sports/betting apps (Yahoo Fantasy Sports & Daily,

Sleeper Fantasy Football), Telegram, Reddit, Parler, 4chan,

casino games, or violent games such as Call of Duty.

A small number (14) of participants used social media apps

with risky features, like being able to connect with strangers

for messaging, sending photos, or video chat. Although these

riskier social media apps did not take up as much time as more

mainstream social media apps, even brief use might lead to

problematic interactions with adults.

7. Young users admit they have

challenges managing their technology

use, but through steps like curation and

adding friction, they're working on it.

In addition to tracking their phones, we surveyed our 203

participants to ask whether they had any problems managing

their technology use. Over two-thirds of these 11- to 17-year-

olds said they "sometimes" or "often" find it difficult to stop

using technology, use technology to escape from sorrow or get

relief from negative feelings, and miss sleep due to being on

their phone or the internet late at night. These impacts may be

due to the natural pull that adolescents feel toward their social

contacts through their phone, but the engagement-prolonging

design of apps and platforms also likely contributes.

Interestingly, our youth advisors described ways of adding

friction to their phones to try to use them more intentionally:

Study design

A diverse sample of 203 U.S. preadolescents (ages 11 to 12)

and adolescents (ages 13 to 17) with their own smartphones

were recruited by Horowitz Research between August and

November 2022 (see Table 1). Parents and caregivers of

tweens and teens were contacted with brief information

about the study, and if interested, provided informed consent

for the child and shared the child's email address. Children

were then contacted by email and provided online informed

consent before completing a baseline questionnaire and

installing the Chronicle app (Methodic, Inc) onto their smart-

phone. Eligibility criteria included: 1) ages 11 through 17; 2)

speaks English or Spanish fluently enough to complete

informed consent and surveys; 3) has their own Android

(version 6.0 or above) smartphone (e.g., Samsung, Google

Pixel, Motorola, etc). iPhone users were not included because

data collection access for detailed app usage (i.e., names of

specific apps such as YouTube, Snapchat, etc.) was not avail-

able for researchers at the time of data collection. The study

was approved by the University of Michigan IRB.

Baseline surveys

Parents reported their educational attainment, household

income, and their child's race/ethnicity. Child participants

completed a brief online survey that included the Technology

Impairment Scale (six items, alpha = 0.76, Burnell & Odgers,

2023, adapted from Meerkerk et al., 2009) which assesses

compulsive technology use or interference with daily activi-

ties (e.g., Do you feel restless, frustrated, or irritated when you

cannot access the internet or check your mobile phone? Do you use

technology to escape from your sorrow or get relief from negative

feelings?) on a response scale of 0 = never, 1 = sometimes, 2 =

often.

Mobile device tracking

Participants were instructed on how to install and set up the

Chronicle app and keep it running on their device for nine

complete days. This app was developed with NIH funding,

pilot-tested and validated against pen-and-paper logs of

smartphone use, and has been used in child and parent popu-

lations (Radesky et al., 2020). After nine days, participants

were contacted and prompted to uninstall Chronicle and data

were exported from the Methodic Chronicle dashboard.

Chronicle provides timestamped data about which app is

running in the foreground and when pickups and notifications

occur, but does not collect information about contacts,

message content, which websites are visited, or what content

is viewed on platforms. In the informed consent form, partici-

pants were provided clear explanations of what data would be

collected, how it would be used, and how soon it would be

deleted.

Data cleaning and inspection processes were used to identify

any missing gaps in smartphone data (e.g., no data for >12

hours) and reduce the duration of apps that sometimes run

long but are not true usage (e.g., launcher, screen saver, alarm

clock). Some participants' data crossed two time zones, indi-

cating that they traveled during data collection, so we

removed the time zones that occurred on fewer days before

analyzing time-stamped data. We visually inspected all over-

night data to ensure that it showed data characteristics of true

usage (i.e., rather than data irregularities that occasionally

occur). Chronicle data was then processed to calculate hourly

and daily duration, pickups, and notifications, as well as dura-

tion and notifications for popular apps and app categories.

Notification and pickup data were not available for four par-

ticipants with older versions of the Android operating system.

Data for each participant were also visualized using R.

App categorization

We pulled data from the Google Play store API corresponding

to each app package name, including the app category (e.g.,

gaming, photography, shopping, social) and content rating

(e.g., Everyone, Teen, 17+, 18+/Adult). Apps that could not be

found on the Play store were manually categorized. We col-

lapsed or expanded some categories to reflect the main types

of apps used by 11- to 17-year-olds. For example, "communica-

tion" apps were recategorized into more precise categories

that reflect different uses, such as calls, email, or chat/messag-

ing. We categorized any app as Social Media if it involved a

non-SMS platform that facilitated the exchange of text, video,

and photo content with interaction by users (e.g., Snapchat).

However, we separated YouTube into its own category (includ-

ing YouTube, YouTube Kids, and YouTube TV) because of the

unique usage patterns YouTube has shown in our prior work

(e.g., Radesky et al., 2020).

Methodology

TABLE 1. Participant characteristics

Characteristic N %

Age category

11 to 12 85 41.9%

13 to 15 93 45.8%

16 to 17 25 12.3%

Gender

Female 89 43.8%

Male 112 55.2%

Nonbinary 1 0.5%

Other/prefer not to answer 1 0.5%

Race/Ethnicity

Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific

Islander

20 9.9%

Black or African American 39 19.2%

Hispanic/Latino/a/x/e 44 21.7%

Some other race 9 4.4%

White 91 44.8%

Household annual income category

<$50,000 71 35.5%

$50,000 to $99,999 77 38.5%

$100,000 or more 52 26.0%

Respondent parent education

High school/technical school or less 31 15.4%

Some college 55 27.2%

College degree 73 36.1%

More than a college degree 43 21.3%

Children in household (including participant)

1 67 33.0%

2 67 33.0%

3 41 20.2%

4 or more 28 13.8%

Respondent parent marital status

Married or living with a partner 146 71.9%

Separated or divorced 21 10.3%

Single 33 16.3%

Widowed 3 1.5%

Data analysis

We conducted descriptive analyses of the average daily dura-

tion of use, number of pickups (defined as the number of times

the screen turned on due to a user action), and number of

notifications. Notification data from the Chronicle app

included both notifications delivered to the smartphone

(regardless of whether the notification was audible or

silenced, as Chronicle does not collect that information) as

well as notifications seen by the user (indicating that the noti-

fication was interacted with by the user or appeared when the

user had the phone screen on). Notifications are delivered by

a wide range of apps, from utilities to texting apps, so duration

and notification data were also analyzed for particular app

categories and individual apps popular within the sample (e.g.,

TikTok). If a participant did not use their phone on a given day,

that day was excluded from analyses, so that the estimates

reflected what tweens and teens did during typical days of

use. We also segmented estimates of duration and pickups

into school hours (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 14:59

p.m., excluding summer/holidays), or school overnight

(Monday through Friday, 12 a.m. to 4:59 a.m., excluding

summer/holidays) period. We calculated the number/percent-

age of participants who used app categories, specific common

social media apps and video games, and whether participants

endorsed positive or negative online experiences or different

technology impairment symptoms.

We used Chi Square and Kruskal Wallis bivariate tests to

study associations between smartphone usage variables and

age range (11 to 12, 13 to 15, and 16 to 17).

Post-analysis youth focus groups

Fifteen members of the 2023 Common Sense Youth Advisory

Council participated in four separate online focus groups with

the goal of helping the research team interpret and contextu-

alize findings from smartphone data. Parents or guardians of

Youth Advisory Council members had provided consent for

their children to participate, and members provided verbal

consent for audiotaping of Zoom focus groups, which were

then transcribed. First and last authors then reviewed themes

that arose from these groups and selected quotes for the

current report that aided with interpretation of findings from

a youth point of view.

Main Findings

How much time were

preadolescents and adolescents

spending with their smartphones?

Time spent with smartphones, or any digital media for that

matter, can mean a variety of things. One hour of smartphone

use might mean an hour laughing with friends, messaging

about homework, consuming influencer content on social

platforms, responding to harassing comments, or getting lost

in a video game. Time spent with a smartphone might find an

adolescent user fully engaged, or might reflect apps running in

the background while the user multitasks. Therefore, these

results regarding smartphone time are the most basic

measure of a young person's relationship with their phone;

however, they hint at how pervasively a phone occupies a

teen's time on a typical day.

When averaged across all days their smartphones were

tracked, participants used their phones for a median of about

four and a half hours per day, but there was a wide range of

usage among different teens as shown by the duration catego-

ries in Figure 1. At the high end, almost 10% of participants

used their smartphones for 10 or more hours per day on

average.

Hour-by-hour averages of smartphone use are shown in

Figure 7. Across all 203 participants, it is clear that the peak of

usage occurs in the afternoon and evening hours. Our youth

advisors stated that their smartphone is often by their side

after school, while doing homework, or when trying to wind

down before bed. Compared to younger participants, more

older teens (16- to 17-year-olds) used their phone in the over-

night hours.

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

Average Duration in Minutes (median [IQR])

Time of Day

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

16-1713-1511−12

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first value

and 25% of users over the second value. Bar shows the median value; line shows IQR.

FIGURE 7. Hour-by-hour plots (from midnight to midnight) of average smartphone use* in minutes, split by age group

However, they also expressed that managing their smart-

phone takes work, and being without their phone can be

freeing:

I feel like we'd all feel a lot better if we were on it

less. Like, when I lost my phone … I didn't have a

phone for a week, and that week was amazing.

Although I couldn't... I had to use my friends'

phones to contact people if I needed to text

them. Just not having a phone, it takes this weight

off of you. It almost sets you free in a way.

—11th grader

When I'm doing work, I like putting my phone to

the side, and whenever I give myself breaks, I'll go

to my phone and check notifications.

—11th grader

Participants picked up their phones a median of 51 times per

day, ranging from two to 498 times per day. When pickups

were graphed hour by hour (Figure 8), it was apparent that

teens (age 13 to 17) check their phone regularly through the

middle of the day (i.e., during school hours) as well as after

school. Younger participants (age 11 to 12) had the lowest

frequency of pickups per hour. Our youth advisors thought

this was probably due to younger smartphone owners having

more phone restrictions and rules placed by their caregivers

as well as smaller social networks to keep in touch with.

Time spent on smartphones varies widely.

Youth advisors were also intrigued by the extreme ends of

smartphone usage found in our study sample. While most

agreed that five hours per day seemed like the amount of time

most of their peers spend on their phone, they were surprised

that some 11- to 17-year-olds would use phones for only a few

minutes per day, or up to 16 hours/day. The daily usage pat-

terns of five participants with the lowest-duration usage, and

five with the most pervasive usage, are shown in Figures 9 and 10.

When talking about how much time their phone use takes up

in a day, most youth advisors felt that their phone integrates

into their daily experience in a non-burdensome way, and

provides small amounts of pleasure or social connection while

they do other things.

Average Pickups (median [IQR])

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

Time of Day

16-1713-1511−12

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first value

and 25% of users over the second value. Dot shows the median value; line shows IQR.

FIGURE 8. Hour-by-hour plots (from midnight to midnight) of average smartphone pickups*, split by age group

TAKEAWAYS

For most adolescents, smartphones take up a large

proportion of their waking hours. Whether this feels

like time well spent depends upon what they're expe-

riencing, what the smartphone is augmenting vs.

interrupting, and the other positive activities the

person had access to that day.

It's important to remember that smartphones are

going to be in both the background and the foreground

of kids' minds.

Young people's phone use patterns vary significantly

from each other, and the unique way that smartphones

interweave into a young person's day feels personal.

Many kids have a signature or pattern to their phone

use, their main "thing" that they love doing (or feel

obsessed with) on their phone, so it's worth helping

them reflect on how their particular personality influ-

ences their relationship with their phone.

TALKING POINTS

Adults can ask:

• What is your favorite app? Do you feel stressed

or excited by it? Or both?

• Does it feel like a job or "work" to stay up to date

on everything?

• What does it feel like when your phone is

commanding your attention vs. just being in

the background of your mind?

• What does it feel like when you don't have your

phone or the room is too quiet? Are you worried

about missing out on anything?

• Have you ever noticed what you're thinking

about if there's no background noise on?

• Do you ever get a sense that you've been on your

phone too long? What are the signs for you?

The adolescents we talked to also reflected on the fact that,

when looking at phone usage visualizations, it seemed that

each participant had their own "style" of use—their "thing"

that they tended to do more than any other activity on their

phone, such as social media (shown as pink shading; Figure 11),

mobile games (red shading; Figure 12), or YouTube (royal blue

shading; Figure 13).

Not all smartphone use is active; some is

background noise.

Youth advisors emphasized that it's important not to assume

that all usage appearing on participants' day-to-day visualiza-

tions was active smartphone usage. They described use of

phones as "background noise"—for example, streaming

movies or videos or music—while doing other activities. This

ambient use of smartphones in the background was described

as having a "stimulation" or calming purpose, in contrast to

engaged usage, such as texting with a friend, that "you can't

just blur out" into the background.

It seems like everybody has their own thing that

they're obsessed with. Like this person has

reading, versus another person has some sort of

YouTube. And it's different for each person, but

everybody seems to be using one thing as a

means to stay connected or to spend time.

—12th grader

Like I see kids in school literally just have

TikTok on autoplay while they're doing work,

like it's sitting on their desk, but they're not even

looking at it. It's just like to have some sort of

stimulation in their brain, I guess, while they're

doing something.

—10th grader

I know a lot of people who work with

Netflix playing. They'll just have it playing

either on their phone or on their computer,

or they'll sleep to it.

—11th grader

I definitely do that. Like if I'm doing laundry, if I'm

doing homework, I'll just have something so that

my room isn't quiet. I kind of enjoy that buzz.

—12th grader

FIGURE 9. Participants with light smartphone usage

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Messaging

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

13-year-old male

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Messaging

Shopping

Tools

Video Chat

YouTube

13-year-old male

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Gaming

Messaging

Music and Audio

Tools

Social Media

YouTube

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

13-year-old female

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Messaging

Gaming

Tools

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

2022−10−17

2022−10−18

2022−10−19

2022−10−20

2022−10−21

2022−10−22

2022−10−23

2022−10−24

2022−10−25

2022−10−26

2022−10−27

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

13-year-old female

FIGURE 10: Participants with longer daily duration of smartphone use

2022−08−27

2022−08−28

2022−08−29

2022−08−30

2022−08−31

2022−09−01

2022−09−02

2022−09−03

2022−09−04

2022−09−05

2022−09−06

2022−09−07

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Education

Entertainment

Gaming

Live Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Shopping

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

YouTube

App Categories

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11-year-old female

2022−11−08

2022−11−09

2022−11−10

2022−11−11

2022−11−12

2022−11−13

2022−11−14

2022−11−15

2022−11−16

App Categories

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Entertainment

Gaming

Live Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Parent Controls

Reading

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

17-year-old male

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

2022−10−17

2022−10−18

2022−10−19

2022−10−20

2022−10−21

2022−10−22

2022−10−23

2022−10−24

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Calls

Education

Gaming

Health and Fitness

Music and Audio

Messaging

Shopping

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

14-year-old male

2022−10−05

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Calls

Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Reading

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

12-year-old female

FIGURE 11. Participants who primarily used social media apps

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Calls

Education

Music and Audio

Messaging

Parent Controls

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

Video Chat

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

14-year-old female

2022−09−29

2022−09−30

2022−10−01

2022−10−02

2022−10−03

2022−10−04

2022−10−05

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Calls

Education

Gaming

Health and Fitness

Music and Audio

Messaging

Parent Controls

Shopping

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

16-year-old female

2022−09−02

2022−09−03

2022−09−04

2022−09−05

2022−09−06

2022−09−07

2022−09−08

2022−09−09

2022−09−10

2022−09−11

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Education

Gaming

Messaging

Social Media

Tools

Art and Photos

App Categories

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

15-year-old female

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

2022−10−17

2022−10−18

2022−10−19

2022−10−20

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

12-year-old male

FIGURE 12: Participants who primarily used mobile games

2022−08−31

2022−09−01

2022−09−02

2022−09−03

2022−09−04

2022−09−05

2022−09−06

2022−09−07

App Categories

Browser

Entertainment

Gaming

Messaging

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11-year-old male

2022−11−12

2022−11−13

2022−11−14

2022−11−15

2022−11−16

2022−11−17

2022−11−18

2022−11−19

2022−11−20

Browser

App Categories

Calls

Gaming

Messaging

Reading

Tools

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11-year-old male

Art and Photos

App Categories

Browser

Calls

Entertainment

Gaming

Messaging

Shopping

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

Video Chat

YouTube

2022−09−30

2022−10−01

2022−10−02

2022−10−03

2022−10−04

2022−10−05

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

14-year-old female

2022−11−01

2022−11−02

2022−11−03

2022−11−04

2022−11−05

2022−11−06

2022−11−07

2022−11−08

2022−11−09

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Gaming

Messaging

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

App Categories

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11-year-old male

FIGURE 13: Participants who primarily used YouTube apps

2022−08−26

2022−08−27

2022−08−28

2022−08−29

2022−08−30

2022−08−31

2022−09−01

2022−09−02

2022−09−03

2022−09−04

2022−09−05

2022−09−06

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Education

Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Tools

Video Chat

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

12-year-old female

2022−11−09

2022−11−10

2022−11−11

2022−11−12

2022−11−13

2022−11−14

2022−11−15

2022−11−16

2022−11−17

2022−11−18

2022−11−19

2022−11−20

2022−11−21

2022−11−22

2022−11−23

2022−11−24

2022−11−25

2022−11−26

2022−11−27

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Entertainment

Gaming

Health and Fitness

Music and Audio

Messaging

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11-year-old female

2022−10−06

2022−10−07

2022−10−08

2022−10−09

2022−10−10

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

2022−10−17

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Entertainment

Gaming

Music and Audio

Messaging

Social Media

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

15-year-old female

2022−10−11

2022−10−12

2022−10−13

2022−10−14

2022−10−15

2022−10−16

2022−10−17

2022−10−18

2022−10−19

App Categories

Art and Photos

Browser

Calls

Entertainment

Gaming

Messaging

Social Media

Streaming Video

Tools

YouTube

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

16-year-old male

FIGURE 14. Median and IQR* of daily duration of different

app categories**, ranked from longest to shortest duration

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the

Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the

first value and 25% of users over the second value. Bar shows the median value;

black line shows IQR.

**Includes only participants who used that category of apps.

Which types of apps did participants

use the longest, and why?

While time is often held out as the most important measure of

how young people use their screen-based devices, time is only

one dimension of the smartphone experience. What young

people do, the content they view and the interactions they

have on their smartphones are critical components of how

they use their devices. Research shows that the quality of the

content and types of activities youth engage with online are

more strongly associated with well-being (Popat & Tarrant,

2023). For example, creative and positive social uses of media

are associated with higher well-being, while viewing more

violent or toxic content is linked with more distress. And while

our methodology cannot tell us exactly what content youth

saw on their phones, understanding what types of apps are

used and in what duration gives us a framework to begin to

understand youths' exposure to different types of content.

The 203 participants in our sample used a total of 1,644

unique apps over the week that their smartphones were

tracked. Individual participants used anywhere from five to

125 different apps over the course of the week, averaging

about 40 different apps overall.

When we looked at categories of apps, social media apps were

used for the longest each day, on average, followed by

YouTube (which includes YouTube, YouTube Kids, and YouTube

TV), mobile games, browser, messaging, and streaming video

(see Figure 14). When considered as a proportion of a partici-

pant's overall smartphone usage, social media (42%), YouTube

(19%), and gaming (11%) apps took up the largest percentage

of time per day, among participants who used those apps. In

contrast, despite their popularity, photography/camera apps,

phone calls, and music apps were only used for a few minutes

per day.

Parent Controls (n=48)

Email (n=146)

Education (n=75)

Shopping (n=79)

Calls (n=181)

Reading (n=44)

Music and Audio (n=144)

Art and Photos (n=192)

Streaming Video (n=93)

Messaging (n=193)

Browser (n=200)

Gaming (n=178)

YouTube (n=177)

Social Media (n=153)

Average Daily Minutes (Median [IQR])

75 100 125 150 175 20050250

Younger participants had the longest duration of the gaming

category of apps. One youth advisor explained the change in

smartphone habits by age this way:

Definitely with more mature teenage audiences,

I feel like there's less game usage ... but I think it

also kind of just depends on who the phone user

is. But I also think that it can be a mix of both.

Like you said, we kind of all get drawn to our

phones when we don't have anything to do, and

definitely I think that social media has kind of

replaced games for older audiences, because it's

like you can pick it up and it's quick entertain-

ment, which is kind of like what a game is, it's

interactive quick entertainment.

—9th grader

This used to apply to me. I'm not active on it

anymore. But the game Hay Day is kind of ... it's

one of the games where you have to come back at

certain intervals to maintain your farm. So I can

see that, like waking up at 8 a.m. and coming back

to it consistently every day, just being integrated

into your schedule because that's how a lot of

people are with it. They know that whenever they

wake up, oh, there's new things to check, you

have to go and maintain your farm, and it's just

like part of their everyday lives.

—11th grader

Over the study week, 657 different mobile games were played

overall, of which 211 (32%) had violent content ratings. When

looking at the mobile gaming patterns found in our partici-

pants, youth advisors found it interesting that some gaming

took place at seemingly random times of day. This was

explained by the fact that some games send notifications to

re-engage the player every day, while other games are

designed in ways that expect frequent engagement to main-

tain progress in the game:

TABLE 2. Popular apps, their number of users, average daily duration, and percentage of total smartphone use they

composed on a typical day*

App name N (%) users

Average daily duration

Median [IQR]**

Range

(hour:minutes)

Percentage of daily use

(median)***

TikTok 102 (50.2%) 1:52 [0:24 - 2:57] <0:01 - 7:48 38.4%

YouTube 175 (86.2%) 0:40 [0:05 - 1:52] <0:01 - 10:13 18.2%

Instagram 70 (34.5%) 0:16 [0:03 - 0:52] <0:01 - 2:56 5.9%

Snapchat 79 (38.9%) 0:10 [0:02 - 0:36] <0:01 - 3:13 3.6%

Discord 72 (35.5%) 0:07 [0:02 - 0:24] <0:01 - 12:20 2.5%

Roblox 74 (36.5%) 0:06 [0:01 - 0:40] <0:01 - 6:25 2.6%

Chrome 191 (94.1%) 0:04 [0:01 - 0:13] <0:01 - 1:24 1.5%

Netflix 53 (26.1%) 0:03 [0:01 - 0:17] <0:01 - 7:31 0.8%

Spotify 81 (39.9%) 0:01 [<0:01 - 0:04] <0:01 - 0:31 0.6%

Facebook 40 (19.7%) 0:01 [<0:01 - 0:04] <0:01 - 1:34 0.1%

Google quick

search box

180 (88.7%) 0:01 [<0:01 - 0:03] <0:01 - 0:21 0.6%

Amazon 47 (23.2%) 0:01 [<0:01 - 0:03] <0:01 - 0:20 0.3%

Pinterest 36 (17.7%) 0:01 [<0:01 - 0:03] <0:01 - 0:48 0.4%

*Calculated only among participants who used that app.

**Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first

value and 25% of users over the second value.

***Percentage of daily use is calculated among those who use the app and as a percentage of all their smartphone use in a day.

I'd say compared to YouTube, [TikTok] is that you

don't have to search through to find a video that

you wanna watch ... I mean if you're on the

Explorer tab for Instagram, or for YouTube, you

have to kind of decide, but it does it for you. So

you can open the app and instantly have a video

you'll probably like.

—10th grader

It's just you watch a video and it's interesting and

you scroll and it's another interesting video. You

don't even have to find videos on your own, it's

right there, it's customized, and you can share

funny things with your friends, so it's addicting.

—12th grader

TikTok: Teens talk about the ease and capture of

the endless short video scroll

When we asked the youth advisors why their peers scrolled

TikTok for nearly two hours a day, taking up almost 40% of

their total phone time, they had lots to say! While text-based

platforms like Twitter are "more work," TikTok was described

as "so easy" because users can simply open up the app and

videos start to play endlessly, compared to having to "actively"

click on videos. Discussing TikTok, two youth advisors shared:

Apps that dominate time: TikTok and YouTube

Some of the most popular apps used by 11- to 17-year-olds in

our sample are shown in Table 2. Of these, those with the

longest daily duration were TikTok, YouTube, Instagram,

Snapchat, Discord, Roblox, Chrome, and Netflix. (Of note,

although Spotify usually streams music for long periods of

time, it is not recorded by our study app as 'in use' because the

screen is usually off while music streams).

Figure 15 shows the distribution of daily duration of use of the

longest-running popular apps in our sample. TikTok and

YouTube had far more users who spent several hours per day

using these apps, with 64% spending more than an hour/day

on TikTok, and 41% doing the same on YouTube. Our youth

advisors attributed this finding to video length, the friction-

less features of these platforms, and the algorithmic tailoring

of videos to a users' interests, making it difficult to disengage.

In contrast, 22% of Snapchat and 7% of Discord users aver-

aged more than one hour/day on these platforms, which youth

advisors noted are primarily for chatting with friends, so they

are used for briefer snippets of time.

FIGURE 15. Average daily duration of select popular apps

TikTok (n=102)

10%

22%

20%

10%

22%

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

Discord (n=72)

12%

17%

64%

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

YouTube (n=175)

10%

17%

14%

10%

34%

Snapchat (n=79)

15%

10%

63%

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

Instagram (n=70)

11%

17%

11%

49%

4-5 hours

3-4 hours

2-3 hours

1-2 hours

30-60 min

15-30 min

0-15 min

>5 hours

Roblox (n=74)

15%

12%

64%

Another key piece of TikTok's appeal to teens was that it could

be consumed in small bites of time, such as in between classes,

compared to more "time-consuming" platforms that need a

time or mental investment, such as YouTube or Netflix. They

also noted with TikTok how quickly the algorithm can learn

what they want and shift to meet their current needs.

A lot of people I know are actually defaulting

more to TikTok and social media sites where they

can get kind of like the quick hit of just like a

short video. So I was surprised that some people

spent that much time on YouTube 'cause most

people I know, if they wanna watch video

content, then they'll go to TikTok. You can easily

just scroll past it. But then also, they're just so

short that even if you're not necessarily that

interested, watching it won't really take up that

much time anyway.

—10th grader

Something that usually breaks that chain of

scrolling on Twitter is … I'll see a tweet that I've

already seen before, so I'm like, 'OK, time for

me to get off.' Whereas TikTok there's nothing to

really break that chain of constant new

information and the stimulation … But TikTok

is definitely more of an internal struggle to

actually be like, 'let me get off,' simply 'cause

the content is just so easy to consume, so it just

feels like an urge to continue to keep scrolling.

—11th grader

TikTok is one of the worst forms of it because it's

not much work, you're just scrolling, and also, you

keep on scrolling and you're finding maybe these

things interesting because your feed is accustomed

to you. And it's easy, it's quick, and I feel like that's

also why a lot of our attention spans are getting

much shorter, because even sometimes ... I'm not

on TikTok as much as I used to be, but when I was

really on it, I would find myself skipping videos

that were over 30 seconds because I couldn't ... I

just wanted to keep on scrolling, keep on scrolling.

—11th grader

Automatic advancement of content feeds also contributed to

the "overflowing" experience of using TikTok or YouTube, and

the challenges some teens feel in breaking away from the feed

of videos:

You have to have a bunch of ideas and a bunch of

different videos flowing into your mind and just

that constant flow of information just overflow-

ing, kind of being overwhelming, I feel like, to an

extent. And I feel like for Netflix, though, it's

helpful and it's better in terms of splitting up the

movies you watch because there's that like ... It's

like start the new episode, and then you kinda get

that guilt like, 'Oh, should I start this whole new

episode and waste another 20 minutes, or should

I just go start my homework?' So I feel like that's

why TikTok is so much more time-consuming, and

YouTube as well, because it just never stops.

There's no end… so they all just, I would say, inev-

itably just keep going on and just blend together.

—10th grader

Youth advisors also mentioned how design features like lack

of friction, infinite content, and the short video format influ-

enced their behavior on TikTok:

Personally, I have one on my TikTok for 45

minutes, but there definitely are some days where

I see it and it's like, 'You have five minutes left for

the day for TikTok,' and I'm like, 'I don't care,' and

I just ignore it. [chuckle] So I think it depends on

how I'm feeling in the day, 'cause sometimes I do

follow that guideline or that restriction, but

sometimes I don't.

—11th grader

I think that most teens don't really follow it, espe-

cially if they set it themselves. It has to be

parent-enforced with a passcode or whatever for

teens to actually follow it. But I feel like, in my

experience, for TikTok, I'm spending two or three

hours a day on TikTok. And I'll set these restric-

tions, yet I'll just block it every time I see it. So I

find it annoying after a while, but I think it's

helpful once I get the notification over and over

to realize that I'm really just wasting my time.

—10th grader

But I also know that YouTube has a sleep notifica-

tion. Like sometimes I get, 'It's time for bed,' and

then you could dismiss it or continue on the app.

—11th grader

We asked youth advisors whether they had tried out time limit

features on TikTok or YouTube, and some had—with mixed

success:

TAKEAWAYS

Time on smartphones among young people is domi-

nated by apps that provide social interaction,

entertaining videos, and games—many of which have

design features that encourage prolonged engage-

ment. These include finely tuned algorithms that can

even adapt to how a child or teen is feeling in the

moment, infinite scrolling of content made by creators

who are competing for attention, and "frictionless"

navigation. (In contrast, a design feature that adds fric-

tion would slow down navigation, cause the user to

pause and make a decision, let them know that they

are "caught up," or encourage them to take a break.)

TikTok in particular was described by our youth advi-

sors as having a lot of engaging ingredients as well as

an ability to be consumed in bite-size bits during down-

time or in between classes. In contrast, apps that

young people use for goal-oriented purposes (such as

taking photos, shopping, or looking something up on a

browser) commanded much less time. Caregivers

should be sensitive to the fact that the companies who

build apps have incentives to design features that

capture kids' attention for longer (such as wanting

more advertising revenue or data collected for tar-

geted marketing), and it's not just kids' lack of

"willpower" that keeps them on their phones.

TALKING POINTS

Adults can ask:

• Which apps take up most of your time (and my

own time, as a parent)? Why is this?

• Are there design features that make your favorite

app hard to put down?

• What do you think social media platforms know

about us, in terms of who we are and how we are

feeling? How do algorithms predict what we

might want to watch or follow?

• How do you see the platform's algorithms at

work? Have you noticed when it's working to

keep you on the app, and how it does that?

• What are some ways to be "in the driver's seat"

while using your phone, other than timers that

don't always work? Are there ways to be con-

scious of the need to not use your phone at

certain times of day? Are there places that you

could keep your phone, some apps that you could

remove, or "do not disturb" settings that could

help you feel more in control?

App stores have age ratings that

recommend how old the users of

specic apps should be, but these are

not routinely enforced. Age-restricting

"gates" on apps and app stores, such

as entering a birth date, have always

been easy to get through. This means

that it is easy for young smartphone

users to wade (or intentionally jump)

into territory that was not intended

for them. Therefore, we explored

whether our participants appeared

to be accessing age-inappropriate

apps on their smartphones.

NSFK? What we found about participants

using apps intended for older audiences

Under-13s regularly use social media and

age-inappropriate apps

Of 85 participants who were younger than 13, 68% used

social media apps, and they all used at least one app rated

"Teen" or higher. Among 11- to 12-year-olds, the most

popular social platforms were:

sendit

BeReal

Twitter

14%

Facebook

16%

Discord

25%

Snapchat

31%

TikTok

47%

Instagram

16%

Facebook Messenger

SCREENSHOTS from app store descriptions of social media apps that provide anonymous connections

(L to R: Monkey, TIYA, Obimy, LMK)

Almost half of our participants used apps

with mature/adult age ratings

Use of mature (17+) or adult only (18+) apps was relatively

common, occurring in 45% of participants. These included

Pornhub, fantasy sports/betting apps (Yahoo Fantasy Sports

& Daily, Sleeper Fantasy Football), Telegram, Reddit, Parler,

4chan, casino games, or violent games such as Call of Duty.

Sexy themes show up in some apps,

mostly video games

Of all the apps used by participants in this study,

47 had content flags about sexual themes, nudity,

or suggestive themes, 34 of which were video games.

Use of risky anonymous social platforms

In addition, 14 participants used social media apps with risky

features, like being able to connect with strangers for

messaging, sending photos, or video chat. These included

Obimy (allows random contacts between users), Monkey

(allows users to chat with "new people all over the world"),

TIYA (allows chats with "strangers and friends"), and LMK

(allows instant talking and dropping into audio rooms with

strangers). These apps potentially open child and adolescent

users to unsafe or exploitative interactions with others.

When I had Discord, it was really, really annoying

with every single message 'cause it wasn't

relevant to me at all, and I just wanted messages

from my friends that I've personally DMed …

there's multiple channels, and if you don't,

I guess, mute certain channels, you will get

every single notification.

—11th grader

I get most excited over Snapchat notifications,

and it doesn't really matter who it's from. I think

that's solely because you get the little Bitmoji,

you get to see who it's from and it's a person

every time, whereas with TikTok or Instagram,

the platform sends you so many just random

notifications that aren't really relevant, there

aren't people interacting with you, that they're

kind of uninteresting.

—11th grader

I know that TikTok, whenever it sends you

notifications, it combines all of them into one.

So if you have a bunch of likes on a post, it won't

send you a notification for each individual one. It

will compile it and it'll be like, 'You have 16 new

notifications,' whereas Snapchat, every time you

get a Snapchat from somebody, it'll give you an

individual message, or every time someone's

typing, you'll get an individual message for that,

and then on top of that, their chat. So those

compile very quickly.

—11th grader

How many smartphone notifications

are young people receiving per day,

and from what apps?

Notifications from apps on our smartphones—whether seen,

heard, felt or silent—are a frequent occurrence for many teen

and adult smartphone users. Compared to smartphone

pickups (see Main Findings section 1), which indicate how

often a user engages with their phone (regardless of whether

they are responding to a notification), notifications signify

how often the phone itself is pinging for attention. These noti-

fications can helpfully direct us to an important message, but

can also serve as a potent distraction from other activities and

draw the user back to their device. Notifications are also one

of the main smartphone design features that users have

control over, which means they can be modified with the goal

of improving focus, family time, or sleep.

Notifications on our participants' smartphones registered in

two ways: notifications delivered and notifications seen by the

user (indicating that they looked at the notification or had

their phone screen on when they received the notification).

On a typical day, participants had a median of 237 notifica-

tions delivered to their smartphone, and they saw or engaged

with 46 of these. This varied considerably between partici-

pants, likely because of the different apps they use, how they

manage notifications, and whether they use "do not disturb"

settings at certain times of day. Notifications were most

numerous from apps young people use to chat with their

friends, such asSnapchat, Instagram, and Discord (see Table 3),

which is consistent with how youth advisors said they priori-

tized their notifications from people they know, rather than

from random platforms, brands, or channels.

I think notifications are very annoying. I have

mine off or always on 'do not disturb,' especially

during school, 'cause I feel like after a while, they

just compile and then it's just notification after

notification, and then I can't even see previous

notifications. And then it's just a lot of informa-

tion with just picking up my phone, and it's

almost like the app is trying to get you to get

more involved and go back to the database.

—10th grader

When plotted over the 24 hours in a day (midnight to mid-

night), seen notifications appeared to jump in the morning

hours (possibly when overnight "do not disturb" settings were

disabled or participants first picked up their phones in the

morning) and then peak in the late afternoon/evening. (See

Figures 16 and 17).

Similar to patterns seen with pickups and duration, younger

users (11-12 years) tended to receive and view fewer notifica-

tions than older users (13-15 and 16-17 years).

Youth advisors explained that it is essential to turn off notifi-

cations to reduce the feeling of overload and interruption:

I think it's seen as a way to just re-instill interest

in their app after long periods of time of not being

on it, and it's just a way to keep you engaged with

it, because by sending you so many random

things, it's bound to hit your interest eventually.

But generally, I do think it's annoying [chuckle]

because so many of them are just irrelevant, and I

think that if they sent less of them, it would be a

better way of going about that.

—11th grader

Another thing with notifications, one thing I've

noticed with Instagram is, over time, they keep

adding new, different types of notifications.

Like when they rolled out reels, they had a

notification like, 'Check out the most watched

reels for today.' So over time, you have to keep

turning off those specific notifications because I

still wanna receive messages from my friends

through DMs. I don't wanna receive those kind

of unimportant messages.

—11th grader

They described needing to not just manage the volume of

notifications, but also the proliferation of types of notifica-

tions from different platforms, to keep things in check and

make space for communication with friends.

TABLE 3. Notifications delivered and seen by the most popular apps

App name

N (%)**

who received

notifications

Median [IQR]*

notifications

delivered

per day Range*

N (%)**

who viewed

notifications

Median [IQR]*

notifications

seen per day Range*

Snapchat 78 (39.2%) 19.6 [5.0 - 67.3] 0.1 - 1026.2 75 (37.7%) 8.3 [2.9 - 27.0] 0.2 - 363.6

Discord 59 (29.6%) 11.8 [3.4 - 42.3] 0.1 - 763.7 57 (28.6%) 4.7 [1.6 - 17.9] 0.1 - 491.6

Instagram 70 (35.2%) 8.9 [3.3 - 27.7] 0.2 - 808.6 69 (34.7%) 5.6 [2.0 - 14.6] 0.1 - 121.0

Facebook 37 (18.6%) 4.0 [1.4 - 5.8] 0.1 - 15.4 36 (18.1%) 3.2 [0.8 - 5.0] 0.1 - 7.8

TikTok 79 (39.7%) 2.9 [1.4 - 5.1] 0.1 - 16.1 76 (38.2%) 1.7 [1.0 - 4.3] 0.1 - 13.2

YouTube 141 (70.9%) 2.4 [1.0 - 6.4] 0.1 - 122.2 127 (63.8%) 1.8 [0.7 - 4.3] 0.1 - 90.6

Pinterest 37 (18.6%) 1.9 [1.1 - 2.2] 0.2 - 17.4 36 (18.1%) 1.6 [1.1 - 2.1] 0.1 - 6.1

Roblox 7 (3.5%) 0.2 [0.1 - 1.0] 0.1 - 8.3 5 (2.5%) 0.2 [0.2 - 0.3] 0.1 - 0.3

*Calculated only among participants who received or viewed notifications from that app, respectively.

**Percentage of 199 participants with notification data.

FIGURE 16. Hour-by-hour plots of average notifications* delivered to participants' smartphones, by age

Average Notiﬁcations Received [median (IQR)]

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

Time of Day

16-1713-1511−12

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first value

and 25% of users over the second value. Dot shows the median value; line shows IQR.

FIGURE 17. Hour-by-hour plots of average notifications* seen or interacted with by participants, by age

Average Notiﬁcations Seen (median [IQR])

12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am 12am 6am 12pm 6pm 12am

11−12 13-15 16-17

Time of Day

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first value

and 25% of users over the second value. Dot shows the median value; line shows IQR.

TAKEAWAYS

Notifications are plentiful, sometimes fun, sometimes

annoying, and they are one of the main things young

people can control in their smartphones. Notifications

from marketers were the least essential and most

irritating to the adolescents we talked to, who were

also wary of platforms trying to get their attention in

inauthentic ways (e.g., by telling them when a distant

acquaintance had posted but didn't tag them). One of

the main things caregivers and teachers can do is help

young people reflect on how smartphone notifications

affect their emotions, concentration, and habits of

checking their device—and then empower young users

to manage their notifications and set "do not disturb"

times that align with their needs.

TALKING POINTS

What adults can say and do:

• Try looking at settings for screen time and digital

wellness on your phone, and on your child's

phone, to talk about which apps send you the

most notifications.

• Then discuss how to intentionally update the set-

tings (both within apps and in phone notification

settings) to cut out all of the extra disruptions

that young people mention as their biggest

annoyance.

• Although it takes time to do it, stopping to reflect

on how your phone tries to get your attention can

lead to great discussions in families and class-

rooms, and it can give users a feeling of control

over how much they use their smartphone.

Parent Controls (n=19)

Email (n=69)

Education (n=51)

Shopping (n=37)

Calls (n=132)

Reading (n=23)

Music and Audio (n=81)

Art and Photos (n=133)

Streaming Video (n=30)

Messaging (n=146)

Browser (n=150)

Gaming (n=119)

YouTube (n=111)

Social Media (n=126)

Average School Day Minutes (Median [IQR])

50403020100

How much does smartphone use

occur during school hours, and why?

Phone use in school has been a subject of intense public

debate, but for many young people it is a necessity, as their

phones may contain school schedules and allow coordination

with family and friends. It is also a potential source of distrac-

tion or avoidance when school feels stressful.

Among the participants in our study, some degree of smart-

phone usage during school hours (Monday through Friday 8

a.m. to 3 p.m.) was nearly universal, and median use was about

43 minutes/day. Young people handled their phones quite a bit

during the school day with a median of 13 pickups (turning the

screen on) during school hours, ranging from <1 to 229.

Smartphone usage visualizations shown in Figures 10, 11, 12,

and 13 illustrate the variety of patterns of smartphone usage

during school hours. Although messaging and browser app

categories were most frequently used during school hours,

this averaged only a few minutes, while social media (32% of

smartphone usage during school hours), YouTube (26%), and

mobile games (17%) took up the largest proportion of time

during school hours, among participants who used those

types of apps.

Surprisingly, parental control apps sent the highest number of

notifications during school hours, sending a median of nearly

30 notifications to young people, with 70 notifications/school

day at the top end. Other app categories sending the most

notifications during school hours were social media (median

5.6, max 759), messaging (median 3.4, max 158), and browser

(median 4.0, max 403). Notifications seen during school hours

were mostly social media (median 2.7, max 205), messaging

(median 2.0, max 92), and browser (median 1.3, max 159),

which is consistent with the ways youth advisors said they

used their phones during school hours.

FIGURE 18. Median and IQR* of duration of use of different

smartphone app categories during school hours**

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the

Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the

first value and 25% of users over the second value. Bar shows the median value;

black line shows IQR.

**Includes only participants who used that category of apps during specified time

frame (Aug. 29 onward; holiday dates removed from analysis).

Definitely at lunch, I could see people using

their phone a lot. But in class, it depends on the

school, but if your school has everyone with

computers, then I think computers. If you're

gonna get distracted doing something, it would

be on computers.

—11th grader

Yeah, it's the same for me, but sometimes if it's

a Friday and it's last period and I'm so drained,

sometimes I go on TikTok for the last 15 minutes

just to get me through it, just 'cause when you're

on TikTok, you lose track of time. So if I'm

scrolling on TikTok for what it feels like five

minutes, it's actually been like 13 minutes,

and I'm like, 'Nice. Now the school day is over.'

—11th grader

School policies and smartphones

School phone policies varied widely among the adolescents

we talked to. For example, some youth advisors described

having a total ban on smartphones in their high schools, with

detentions resulting if students used their phone. In other

schools, youth advisors described having policies that ranged

from no restrictions or class-specific rules, including teachers

encouraging use during class (e.g., to look something up or

participate in class discussions), allowing students to use

phones once they completed in-class assignments, and gener-

ally allowing smartphone access between periods. Some

youth advisors' teachers used strategies such as having stu-

dents put their phone in a bag at the front of class, to avoid it

being a distraction. School policies also varied by the age of

students, with the high school age youth advisors reflecting

back on stricter rules in middle school.

Youth advisors provided insight into why they would use

phones in school, when, and what effect it has on them. Many

described using the phone to take small breaks during lunch or

class, but also noted it could be challenging to keep the phone

use to their preset goals or a minimum:

Sometimes I use my phone just to scroll during

lunch. If I have a free period, like on the rare

occasion that I do have a free period, sometimes

I'll use my phone … but I generally try to avoid

touching my phone during school because I don't

want it to throw me off … the reason why I try not

to touch it at all, 'cause even if I set the boundary

of, 'OK, maybe I'll only be on my phone for a

cumulative of 30 minutes of the school day,' it's

hard to know whether I can actually stick to that

boundary, so I'd rather just not pick it up in the

first place to prevent going over that boundary.

—11th grader

It's just like, 'Don't use it during class.'

—11th grader

It's supposed to be no phone until passing times,

that's like four minutes long, but the reality,

students just use it if they wanna use it. And

teachers will start off saying, 'Don't use it,' but if

students want to use it, who's really gonna stop

them? … Teachers definitely say, 'Put your phones

away,' but students get clever. And also just

because of the phone problem, there's a new rule

where you trade in your phone for the pass to go

to the restroom. 'Cause you spend more time

probably in the bathroom with your phone there.

—12th grader

I played spring sports, so being able to check my

phone and make sure if we weren't sure about the

weather and knowing whether or not the game is

happening or where we were meeting, that was

really helpful. It's harder to check on my com-

puter than it is on a phone. Not me personally, but

there's definitely kids who listen to music during

class or during lunch instead of interacting with

other kids. So I think that would be an area in

which it's not helpful … [this is driven by] I think

either stress or boredom, generally boredom.

—10th grader

I think for school, using it just for communication,

like just texting friends to meet up sometime

during lunch or something, that's definitely

useful. But then when it becomes distracting,

getting a lot of notifications in class and stuff, it

can become a problem.

—11th grader

We have a no-phone rule, and if it's out, the deans

and our teachers are pretty harsh about giving us

detentions. So I think that mostly keeps our

phones away, but I would definitely say in class if

we're just ... If I'm done with an assignment, my

phone will be in my backpack and I'll tap the

screen to see if there's any notifications. And

obviously it's kind of pointless because it's like,

OK, well, you can't actually open those notifica-

tions, but it's just like seeing what's there, and I

think that's kind of the addicting part of it … But

yeah, I would say I think the rules kind of help us,

and I personally am OK with it, yeah. And I think

most of my friends would agree too.

—9th grader

Use during school hours was predominantly social

media apps, which youth advisors said is consistent

with their experience of enjoying checking in with

friends, coordinating meeting up, and getting small

doses of fun. However, they also recognized when

phone use becomes too distracting, is an avoidance

strategy, or serves the purpose of relieving boredom.

The inconsistency between different teachers and classroom

expectations can be frustrating to some adolescents, but

stricter rules are sometimes appreciated in retrospect:

Well, generally my school is pretty relaxed. It's

just some teachers that really do not like phones

in their classrooms. And I feel with those teachers

that are really strict on it, I feel like if anything, it

just causes kids to wanna act out even more.

Because now it's not like, 'Oh, I have my phone

out and she's telling me respectfully, like, hey,

could you put this away?' Now it's like this whole

big deal where the kid's like, 'Oh, but it's not fair

that I never get to use my phone.' When I was in

middle school, we had super, super strict [rules

about] phone use, and at the moment I was like,

'Yeah, this is so annoying,' but now, looking back

on it, it actually was a really good thing.

—11th grader

In my school, we tend to have longer passing

periods, or at least they're close enough together

that lots of students will arrive at class and then

check their email on their phone or check

Snapchat in the remaining time they have before

class starts.

—10th grader

Currently, my school is really lenient about phone

rules and our teachers are OK with us using

laptops or iPads to help us learn, to take down

notes. And we also, at any moment, can just

access our phone, just not doing tests or quizzes

or anything that it's like an assessment …

And even if, sometimes let's say you get bored in

class, if it's just for a few seconds our teachers

allow us to just quickly check our phones, and

then reset and then come back with a better

sense of concentration.

—12th grader

I really don't find having my phone next to me in

class a distraction. If anything, it's just like, oh, I

have my phone there in case I need it. But when I

do use my phone in school, I find that it's either to

look something up because I don't really under-

stand something, or just after I've finished all my

work, just to be able to relax for a little bit … I will

say that I'm at least tapping my phone to see if I

got a notification or just opening it really quickly

to maybe scroll on Instagram while I'm waiting for

the teacher's directions or something like that.

—11th grader

TAKEAWAYS

Smartphone use in schools is not driven only by young

people's interests and behaviors; it is also largely

shaped by school phone policies and how they are

enforced. Phone policies vary by child age. For

example, middle schoolers often have stricter rules

about not using phones in class, while some high

schools allow students more phone use (Tandon et al.,

2020). This is an opportunity for students to learn self-

regulation and intentional (in other words, not

habit-driven) smartphone usage. Since school is one of

the main environments where adolescents interact

with their peers, it makes sense that phones are being

used for that purpose.

TALKING POINTS

What adults can say and do:

• Ask: What are your school's policies for tech use?

How well are those rules enforced by teachers,

and do students follow them? What do you think

are the positive and negative effects of these

policies?

• Adults can help children and adolescents reflect

on how using smartphones in school makes your

brain feel (in terms of emotions, attention, and

thinking), and when it's an avoidance strategy.

• If they don't want to talk about their own phone

use during school, ask about peers' use: When

does your child think that other kids are using

their phones too much, and why?

How much smartphone use occurs

during school night hours, and why?

Sleep is critical for the health and development of children and

adolescents. Concerns and debate over the role of phones and

apps on the sleep habits of teens and tweens have been

ongoing, but studies have rarely looked at the patterns of

smartphone use that occur overnight. We focused specifically

on school nights because insufficient sleep before school can

contribute to feeling unfocused, sleepy, and irritable.

Almost 60% of participants used their smartphone during

school night hours (Monday through Friday, midnight until 5

a.m.) at least once during the study period. Overnight usage

on school nights was shorter (median 19.8, range less than one

minute to 300 minutes) than non-school nights (median 30.3,

range less than one minute to 299 minutes)—typically 20 vs.

30 minutes, respectively. As is illustrated in Figures 9, 10, 11,

12, and 13, social media, gaming, and YouTube were the most

commonly and longest-used app categories during school

night hours. Specific apps seemed particularly engaging over-

night, including mobile games like Nikke, Klondike, Random

Dice, WWE Super Card, or Cat Game. The longest-running

social media app overnight was TikTok.

On a typical school night, the median number of times a teen

or preteen picked up their smartphone was 1.0, ranging up to

18 times in a night. Both notifications delivered and notifica-

tions seen on school nights were relatively sparse, with a

median of less than one per night for most app categories.

Interestingly, the category with one of the highest rates of

notifications overnight was parental control apps (median

15.3 delivered, 0.4 seen, ranging up to 38 delivered and 15

seen per night). This might reflect parental controls pinging

users to tell them they've exceeded bedtime limits.

FIGURE 19. Median and IQR* of duration of use of different

smartphone app categories during school nights**

*Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the

Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the

first value and 25% of users over the second value. Bar shows the median value;

black line shows IQR.

**Includes only participants who used that category of apps during specified time

frame (Aug. 29 onward; holiday dates removed from analysis).

Parent Controls (n=3)

Email (n=11)

Education (n=5)

Shopping (n=11)

Call (n=9)

Reading (n=6)

Music and Audio (n=18)

Art and Photos (n=24)

Streaming Video (n=14)

Messaging (n=27)

Browser (n=49)

Gaming (n=32)

YouTube (n=54)

Social Media (n=60)

Average School Night Minutes (Median [IQR])

3020100

And then, also I think definitely before bed, the

times that show in the night, I think that especially

right before bed, if you're not feeling extremely

tired 'cause you just did a ton of homework, so

you're ready to go, you're feeling productive, I feel

sometimes when you get into bed, you don't

necessarily feel ready to go to sleep. So one of the

things you'll do is just pull out your phone. And I

definitely don't think that's healthy at all, which is

why my parents make me keep my phone

downstairs when I go to bed. But yeah, I would

say that that kind of explains the really late

times of using it.

—9th grader

For me, going on TikTok or something before

I go to sleep, it's like a way for me to procrastinate

actually going to sleep. So now when I go to sleep,

I wake up and then I'm going back to school and it's

back to the stresses of life. But when I'm in bed is

the one time where I really don't have to do

anything, so I'm kind of happy to put off sleeping

if I can just chill for like another hour or something.

—11th grader

Youth advisors thought it was unsurprising that participants

showed this pattern of smartphone use into the overnight

hours, focusing on apps that let them relax and have fun during

what may be their main "downtime." The low frequency of

notifications seen is also consistent with the fact that many

young people put "do not disturb" settings on overnight.

Youth advisors described that time with their phone before

bed might be the only free downtime —their time—that they

have in the day, so they want to use it on something pleasur-

able, like social media or videos/movies.

However, youth advisors endorsed that smartphone use at

night is a mixture of procrastination (because falling asleep

means they have to wake up for the next day, which is school),

losing track of time, and wanting to calm down.

I know that, at least for me, a lot of people

would be still on their phone like at 12 or 1 a.m.

—11th grader

Realistically when you're in school, you can't really

use your phone. When you get home, especially if

you're in middle school or high school, you're

spending hours doing homework, and maybe after-

school stuff. And then when you get home, you're

spending hours doing homework. So I know a lot of

people, especially my age, they will stay up late

because they feel like that's really the only time

that they can be on their phones or that they can

really do anything outside of school. So it's really

not that surprising when you actually think about

it. But initially it is like, 'Oh, yeah, they should be

sleeping,' but it actually does make sense.

—11th grader

TAKEAWAYS

Phone use at night serves several purposes for young

people, primarily to try to unwind at the end of the day

(something parents use it for too!). However, our

youth advisors felt that social media and video content

is both relaxing and sleep-displacing, and can become

a procrastination strategy. The adolescents we talked

to who reported putting their phone in another room,

using "do not disturb," or other strategies to limit

phone use overnight had less complicated narratives

about phone use at night. In addition to using strate-

gies to keep phones quiet at night, it's also important

to understand how much pressure young people feel

during the day, and give them time to decompress with

or without technology, so they are not packing this

into the end of the day.

TALKING POINTS

What adults can do and say:

• If your child is using their phone a lot at the end of

the day, talk with them about what the rest of

their day looks like: Are they getting enough time

to relax and unwind? Are they overscheduled or

having difficulty finishing homework? Strategize

on how to help de-stress the other parts of their

day first.

• If your child finds it hard to separate from their

phone at night, talk about what types of apps or

content "wake their brain up" versus help them

let go and calm down, and try to only use the

calmer apps before bed.

• Our youth advisors told us that timers and limits

aren't always effective, but they can remind you

that you've spent more time on an app than you

intended, so they're worth a try for kids who feel

like they're wasting time watching videos or

reading other people's posts.

• Experiment with a few nights of using the "do not

disturb" settings, or putting the phone in another

room overnight (for parents, too). Reflect with

your child the next day about how it felt.

I definitely would stay up very late most nights

if I was on YouTube or Instagram. I've caught

myself like, 'Oh, it's already an hour past when I

was planning to go to bed, and I'm just there on

my phone on Instagram.' … Reading or

entertainment or calls…would probably go a lot

less late because I feel like that's not keeping

you glued to the screen.

—10th grader

Youth advisors also recognized the way different apps' design

affordances influence their ability to fall asleep, although this

might vary between adolescents:

I think that's the case with social media,

but not with YouTube. I often watch YouTube right

before I fall asleep and it doesn't cause any

problems for me. It helps me fall asleep, actually.

So that's one way it could be helpful. TikTok, I

think for everybody at least, is just a bunch of

videos over and over again, so a lot of information

coming in at once, as well as a variety of colors and

flashing lights in a sense. And then what I like to do

on YouTube is listen or watch long video essays

that are a couple of hours long and I'll just put that

on and I'll fall asleep to it and I won't even look at

the screen. So I think that helps, in a sense,

not keep me up.

—10th grader

Because you're with 10- to 12-year-olds who

maybe just got their first phone and that's all that

they wanna do, that's all they wanna use, and

they don't really have as much self-control.

Because it does ... Your relationship with your

phone changes. As you grow older, you realize

like, hey, there's a time and a place, and right now

isn't that place. So I feel like now that I'm in high

school and they kind of ... It's your decision. If you

wanna be on your phone while they're teaching a

lesson, that reflects on you. You know what I

mean? And so I feel like it's also something

that comes with age.

—11th grader

How much tension or frustration

are preadolescents and adolescents

experiencing about their smart-

phones? How do they manage this,

and what does it mean for how

phones could be designed better?

Prior research shows that young people have complicated

relationships with their phones, and often need to put in effort

to feel positive and balanced with the rest of their lives. Based

on responses of our 203 participants to the Technology

Impairment Scale in the survey portion of our study, we found

that the majority endorsed "sometimes" or "often" using tech-

nology in ways that interfered with socializing in person,

getting enough sleep, disengaging from media when they

wanted to, or following through on chores (Figure 20).

FIGURE 20. Self-reported technology management

challenges of 203 11- to 17-year-olds

42%

38% 20%

Do you choose to spend more time online

over going out with others?

31% 39% 30%

Do you use technology to escape from your sorrow

or get relief from negative feelings?

30% 53% 18%

Do you feel restless, frustrated, or irritated when you cannot

access the internet or check your mobile phone?

39% 45% 16%

Do you neglect your daily obligations (school or family life)

because you are using technology?

33% 49% 18%

Are you short of sleep due to being on your phone

or the internet late at night?

14% 50% 36%

Do you ﬁnd it difﬁcult to stop using technology such as

the internet or your mobile phone, once you start?

Never Sometimes Often

Surprisingly, about one-fifth to one-third of participants

endorsed feeling like technology was getting in the way of

other things "often." Thirty-six percent of participants

reported they often find it difficult to stop using technology

once they have started; 30% reported often using it to escape

from sorrow or get relief from negative feelings; 18% reported

often being short of sleep due to being on their phone or the

internet late at night; 18% reported often feeling restless,

frustrated, or irritated when they could not access the inter-

net or check their phone; 20% reported often choosing to

spend more time online rather than going out with others; and

16% often neglected daily obligations such as school or family

life due to using technology. These technology impairment

reports increased as participants got older.

Youth advisors told us that their relationship with their smart-

phone evolved with age, based on experience, trial and error,

spending more time on their phone, and their growing reflec-

tion and self-awareness:

Well, one thing that I've changed this year is for

text message notifications. I used to have it so

that when I open my phone, it shows the actual

message, but now I have it so that it just has two

notifications because it makes it a little bit less

tempting to click on it and a little bit easier

to say, 'OK, I'll look at this later.'

—10th grader

I also have 'do not disturb' on, occasionally, but for

the most part I just manually go into settings and

turn off any apps that I think don't really require

notifications. Like what [another Youth Advisory

Council member] said, Spotify or any fitness apps.

I don't work out often so I don't really need it. For

social media apps and just texting and stuff, my

phone is always on vibrate. And I don't really text

people much besides like immediate family and a

few close friends. So besides that, I get maybe just

a hundred notifications per day, which I think is a

healthy amount. For apps, like gaming apps on my

phone, I don't really play games on my phone,

it's just too small for me. And I feel like that really

helps me just concentrate and focus on just

talking to a few friends and family rather than

playing around and receiving like a thousand

notifications per day.

—12th grader

They also talked about adding friction to their phone use at

times of day when they want to resist the urge to check

notifications:

They also describe needing strategies to feel like they are in

control of their phone use, and not vice versa. These primarily

focused on curation of what apps they use and send them

notifications:

I think if you're an active user of your phone,

there's so many notifications you're gonna get

from different platforms that you're not even

using, they're not even just for communication.

You're just gonna get so many that if you don't

curate, you're gonna be overwhelmed.

—11th grader

I always keep my phone on 'do not disturb' at

night, just so that I'm not tempted to go on my

phone, but I also don't keep it in my bedroom.

—9th grader

Yeah, I do, sometimes when I'm asleep, I have

'do not disturb' on, and I usually also put it on

airplane mode. Sometimes if I just wanna stop

any sort of interaction with my phone, I'll just

put on airplane mode.

—10th grader

When I'm doing homework, what I do a lot

to avoid going on my phone is I set ... I had this

app, and it's like ... I don't know. It's like growing

a plant, so like the time that you put your phone

down and you don't touch it and you don't open

up your phone, the plant grows, so it's like a

little incentive.

—10th grader

For me, my parents were concerned about my

phone usage time for a while, but any time they

tried to put the restriction, it didn't really work out

that well. But when I put on my own restrictions,

they lasted a lot or they have been lasting a lot

longer and actually worked … I think, in a sense,

my parents being really into it was a little bit coun-

teractive because it made me less willing to do it

'cause I felt like I didn't want them to take away my

phone really, and I just used it more. And then

when ... The further we got out from COVID, I real-

ized how much time I was spending on my phone

and that I think I could have come to a little sooner

if I didn't feel the need to go against my parents.

—10th grader

Youth advisors reflected on how limits placed by outside

forces, such as a screen time notification or parent rules, were

less effective than students' own self-motivated strategies:

From a research perspective, our results are consistent with

other published research in terms of the amount of time that

adolescents self-report spending on social media (Rideout,

2022). App tracking also provides insights into the times of day

when phones are used and notifications are delivered. The

adolescents we interviewed pointed out that the most signifi-

cant limitation of app tracking is that it doesn't tell researchers

what type of content the participant is seeing, what they are

posting, or how they are engaging with others. One focus

group participant said, "Although some people can be on the

same app for the same amount of time in a day, they can be on

completely different sides of the apps and consuming differ-

ent types of content and just utilizing the apps in different

ways." Therefore, future research will need to supplement this

method with either screenshots (e.g., citizen science-type

sampling) or youth self-reporting about what they encoun-

tered on different platforms and how it made them feel.

Another limitation is that app usage statistics are currently

available only from Android devices. However, because

Android device users tend to be from lower socioeconomic

strata than iPhone users (e.g., see Radesky et al., 2020), this

allowed us to enroll a more diverse sample.

Recommendations for parents and caregivers

Specific talking points and conversation starters are described

in the prior sections, but they all involve a few important

concepts:

1. It can be challenging to strike a positive balance between

smartphone usage and the other parts of life that matter

to tweens and teens. Rather than jump to judgment or

frustration, adults should be curious about their experi-

ences to meet them where they are.

2. Kids are often worried that parents will take away their

phones if they reveal negative experiences. Let your child

know at the outset that they can tell you about anything

that happens on their phone and you'll help them through it.

3. Parents themselves use smartphones for several hours

per day, and sometimes the same apps that kids use. Use

this as a way to reflect, exchange experiences, or experi-

ment with changes in phone use to consider how it

changes your mood, concentration, and sleep.

Discussion

Children's smartphone use is a common source of frustration

for adults. We worry that kids are spending too much time, too

much attention, and are being exposed to too many negative

things through these handheld computers that burst into our

lives 15 years ago. However, as adults, we also need to recog-

nize that this generation of young people haven't been given

other technological options (aside from flip phones) to carry

out the developmentally appropriate task of connecting with

their peers, exploring their identities, and learning about the

world independently. The device that's available to them is

also a potent marketing vehicle that tries to keep them

engaged and profile their interests.

In this study, we have explored this topic by combining insights

from the usage data of 203 young people's smartphones with

the narratives of youth advisors. Our goal is not to add to the

debate about when children or teens should get smartphones,

but instead to see the issue from the perspective of how

smartphones shape the experiences of young people. Without

understanding how young people build relationships with

these technologies that contain their friendships, entertain-

ment, stress relievers, and distractions—and how this depends

upon design features of the phones themselves—we will not

be able to support their healthy technology use.

Therefore, our takeaways and recommendations for caregiv-

ers and teachers revolve around supporting, scaffolding, and

building insight around young people's smartphone use,

rather than judging them. We do kids and their digital well-

being a disservice by being overly negative and prescriptive,

since this will likely only shut down conversations and make

young people feel that they cannot come to us when they

experience phone-related challenges—which most do, at one

time or another.

In addition, our recommendations are focused on the smart-

phone manufacturers, operating systems, platforms, and apps

that make up kids' digital ecosystems. There is clear room for

improvement when apps are pinging for attention during the

school day; when teens can access pornography sites, sports

betting, or other apps rated as "Adult"; and given that the

majority of 11- to 12-year-olds in our sample broke through

social media age gates.

3. Update operating systems so that they help notify apps,

app stores, and platforms that the user is a child or ado-

lescent. This way, apps and stores can use responsible

settings that don't recommend risky content or apps.

4. Mobile carriers should make more affordable, intermedi-

ate device options available to families when they want to

get a phone that is more than a flip phone, but not a full-

access smartphone. Phone models are being introduced

that might serve kids better at different developmental

stages, but they are often expensive or not compatible

with various phone plans.

5. Currently, digital wellness options include timers, lock-

outs, and "do not disturb" settings, which have variable

effectiveness according to the adolescents we inter-

viewed. Some young users have developed approaches

like adding friction or avoiding certain content during

evening hours, but this is far from universal. In fact, two-

thirds of our sample felt their phone use impinged upon

important parts of their life like sleep or emotional

coping. Youth-centered co-design of smartphone options

with adolescents would move the burden away from indi-

vidual children and onto the digital ecosystem around

them. Such an approach would benefit our population as

a whole (Frieden, 2010).

4. Every child is different, and their use of phones and social

media will reflect that individuality. Understanding and

accepting your child's unique way of living in the world is

a big part of understanding and communicating about

their phone use.

5. Installing parental controls, filters, timers, and other

device restrictions is the main option that lots of parents

have for monitoring their child's phone use, but these are

blunt tools that require a lot of upkeep and parent

involvement. Most importantly, none of them will tell you

how your child is feeling. Have regular conversations to

understand how they feel about their life online.

Recommendations for industry

We conclude by listing several insights from this research

that could be used to improve the smartphone user experi-

ence for young people. Children and adults are provided the

same options for smartphone models, operating systems,

and app stores, which means that they are subject to the

same business models, content problems, and persuasive

design practices. Not surprisingly, young users are putting in

a lot of work to manage their relationships with smart-

phones. While it is important not to restrict young people's

opportunities to find good content and information through

their phones, device and app design could be improved to

ease this process for young people and their parents. Below

are some actions that companies and product designers

could take to go beyond their current menu offerings of

parental controls and truly bake youth-centered design into

their products:

1. Create user interface and onboarding processes (for

example, when a young user first gets a phone or creates

an account) that easily allow users to set "do not disturb"

times, manage when they want to get notifications and

from whom, and set goals for how much they would like

to use their phone. These settings should not be buried

or need a separate app to install. This sets the norm that

it's important to be intentional about the time and place

when smartphone use does and does not fit daily life.

2. Work with adolescents and families to design ways to

revisit settings and goals regularly, and to adapt as young

users grow, learn about their smartphone habits, and

develop different daily routines and interests. Different

seasons or school years present appropriate times for

prompts and reflection cues that would engage young

users in the process of thinking about smartphone

balance.

Radesky, J. S., Weeks, H. M., Ball, R., Schaller, A., Yeo, S., Durnez,

J., ... & Barr, R. (2020). Young children's use of smartphones

and tablets. Pediatrics, 146(1). https://doi.org/10.1542/

peds.2019-3518

Radesky, J., Hiniker, A., McLaren, C., Akgun, E., Schaller, A.,

Weeks, H. M., ... & Gearhardt, A. N. (2022). Prevalence and

characteristics of manipulative design in mobile applications

used by children. JAMA Network Open, 5(6),

e2217641-e2217641.

Rideout, V., Peebles, A., Mann, S., & Robb, M. B. (2022). Common

Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens, 2021. San

Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

Tandon, P. S., Zhou, C., Hogan, C. M., & Christakis, D. A. (2020).

Cell phone use policies in U.S. middle and high schools. JAMA

Network Open, 3(5), e205183-e205183.

Vogels, E.A., Gelles-Watnick, R., and Massart, N. (2022) Teens,

Social Media and Technology 2022, Washington, DC: Pew

Research Center.

Weinstein, E., & James, C. (2022). Behind their screens: What teens

are facing (and adults are missing). MIT Press.

References

5 Rights Foundation (2021). Pathways: How Digital Design Puts

Children at Risk. https://5rightsfoundation.com/uploads/

Pathways-how-digital-design-puts-children-at-risk.pdf

Burnell, K., & Odgers, C. L. (2023). Trajectories of Perceived

Technological Impairment and Psychological Distress in

Adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 52(2), 258-

272. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10964-022-01679-1

Francis, Kathleen, et al. Insights about screen-use conflict from

discussions between mothers and pre-adolescents: A the-

matic analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research

and Public Health 18.9(2021): 4686. https://doi.org/10.3390/

ijerph18094686

Frieden, T. R. (2010). A framework for public health action: The

health impact pyramid. American Journal of Public Health,

100(4), 590-595. https://doi.

org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2009.185652

Hiniker, A., Schoenebeck, S. Y., & Kientz, J. A. (2016, February).

Not at the dinner table: Parents' and children's perspectives

on family technology rules. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM

conference on computer-supported cooperative work & social

computing (pp. 1376-1389). https://doi.

org/10.1145/2818048.2819940

Matthes, J., et al. Fighting over smartphones? Parents' excessive

smartphone use, lack of control over children's use, and con-

flict. Computers in Human Behavior 116(2021): 106618.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106618

Meerkerk, G. J., Van Den Eijnden, R. J., Vermulst, A. A., &

Garretsen, H. F. (2009). The compulsive internet use scale

(CIUS): Some psychometric properties. Cyberpsychology &

Behavior, 12(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2008.0181

Moreno, M. A., Kerr, B. R., Jenkins, M., Lam, E., & Malik, F. S.

(2019). Perspectives on smartphone ownership and use by

early adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 64(4), 437-

442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.08.017

Pew Research Center, (2021): Mobile Fact Sheet: Demographics

of Mobile Device Ownership and Adoption in the United

States, Washington, DC.

Popat, A., & Tarrant, C. (2023). Exploring adolescents' perspec-

tives on social media and mental health and well-being–A

qualitative literature review. Clinical Child Psychology and

Psychiatry, 28(1), 323-337. https://doi.

org/10.1177/13591045221092884

Supplemental Tables

SUPPLEMENTAL TABLE 1. Select app categories: Average daily duration and percentage of daily use*

App Category N (%) users

Average Daily Minutes

(Median [IQR]**) Range

Percentage of Daily Use

(median)***

Overall 203 (100%) 266.5 [159.5 - 406.9] 2.7 - 976.1 –

Messaging 193 (95.1%) 4.1 [1.6 - 11.5] 0.01 -102.8 1.7%

Calls 181 (89.2%) 1.7 [0.6 - 3.8] 0.004 - 49.0 0.7%

Education 75 (36.9%) 0.8 [0.1 - 2.5] 0.004 - 65.1 0.3%

Video Chat 61 (30.0%) 0.3 [0.01 - 3.6] 0.002 - 136.8 0.1%

Reading 44 (21.7%) 1.8 [0.1 - 8.8] 0.001 - 273.8 0.7%

Art and Photos 192 (94.6%) 2.5 [0.7 - 5.8] 0.002 - 43.1 0.9%

Browser 200 (98.5%) 6.8 [2.2 - 17.3] 0.01 - 611.6 2.7%

Email 146 (71.9%) 0.5 [0.1 - 1.1] 0.002 - 24.1 0.2%

Social Media 153 (75.4%) 91.6 [21.7 - 195.7] 0.01 - 806.4 41.5%

Gaming 178 (87.7%) 25.1 [5.0 - 59.4] 0.002 - 681.2 10.9%

Live Gaming 15 (7.4%) 0.1 [0.01 - 0.3] 0.002 - 5.7 0.01%

YouTube 177 (87.2%) 44.3 [5.6 - 118.1] 0.01 - 613.2 19.3%

Streaming Video 93 (45.8%) 3.9 [0.2 - 18.3] 0.002 - 452.0 1.6%

Music and Audio 144 (70.9%) 2.4 [0.8 - 7.2] 0.002 - 102.6 1.0%

Shopping 79 (38.9%) 1.1 [0.3 - 3.6] 0.01 - 55.6 0.3%

Parent Controls 48 (23.6%) 0.1 [0.1 - 0.4] 0.002 - 47.8 0.1%

News and Magazines 11 (5.4%) 3.6 [0.4 - 7.8] 0.003 - 33.4 2.9%

*Calculated only among participants who used that app category.

**Median is the value that 50% of the users are under and 50% are over. IQR is the Interquartile Range, which is the middle 50% of users, with 25% of users under the first

value and 25% of users over the second value.

***Percentage of daily use is calculated among those who use the app category and as a percentage of all their smartphone use in a day.

SUPPLEMENTAL TABLE 2. Select app category duration and notification frequency during school hours*

App Category N (%) users**

Median (IQR)

duration of daily

use during

school hours***

Percentage of

school hours use***

Notifications

received

school hours

(median [IQR])****

Notifications

seen

school hours

(median [IQR])****

Overall 187 (96.9%) 42.7 [19.1 - 93.4] – 50.1 [20.2 - 100.4] 12.6 [3.9 - 33.9]

Messaging 146 (75.6%) 1.5 [0.6 - 3.9] 3.8% 3.4 [1.0 - 9.5] 2.0 [0.6 - 5.3]

Calls 132 (68.4%) 0.4 [0.1 - 1.0] 1.1% 1.1 [0.4 - 2.1] 0.5 [0.3 - 1.2]

Education 51 (26.4%) 0.8 [0.1 - 1.9] 1.4% 1.4 [0.6 - 3.2] 1.1 [0.6 - 2.8]

Reading 23 (11.9%) 2.8 [0.1 - 5.7] 3.5% 0.7 [0.4 - 1.1] 0.6 [0.3 - 1.0]

Art and Photos 133 (68.9%) 0.9 [0.2 - 2.5] 1.5% 0.8 [0.4 - 1.7] 0.4 [0.3 - 0.7]

Browser 150 (77.7%) 1.6 [0.4 - 4.5] 3.5% 4.0 [1.9 - 6.0] 1.3 [0.6 - 2.5]

Email 69 (35.8%) 0.3 [0.1 - 0.7] 0.4% 2.4 [0.7 - 7.7] 1.2 [0.5 - 2.8]

Social Media 126 (65.3%) 15.0 [2.9 - 46.6] 32.3% 5.6 [1.5 - 19.0] 2.7 [0.8 - 11.3]

Gaming 119 (61.7%) 8.0 [2.7 - 18.4] 17. 3% 1.3 [0.4 - 2.9] 0.8 [0.3 - 2.3]

YouTube 111 (57.5%) 11.3 [2.6 - 28.9] 25.7% 1.0 [0.5 - 3.4] 1.0 [0.4 - 2.7]

Streaming Video 30 (15.5%) 4.0 [0.1 - 13.7] 5.4% 0.3 [0.2 - 1.0] 0.4 [0.2 - 1.0]

Music and Audio 81 (42.0%) 0.8 [0.2 - 2.8] 1.6% 0.9 [0.5 - 2.4] 0.4 [0.2 - 1.2]

Shopping 37 (19.2%) 0.6 [0.1 - 1.4] 0.6% 1.0 [0.3 - 2.1] 0.8 [0.3 - 1.8]

Parent Controls 19 (9.8%) 0.1 [0.03 - 0.3] 0.2% 29.4 [0.7 - 45.6] 2.0 [0.7 - 5.1]

*For 193 participants enrolled from Aug. 29 on; holiday dates removed from analysis.

**Number (percentage) of participants who used the app category during school hours; this differs from the number of participants who received or viewed notifications.

***Calculated only among participants who used that app category.

****Calculated only among participants who received or viewed notifications from that app category, respectively.

SUPPLEMENTAL TABLE 3. Select app category duration and notification frequency on school nights*

App Category N (%) users**

Median (IQR)

duration of daily

use during school

night hours***

Percentage of

school night

hours use***

Notifications

received school

night hours

(median [IQR])****

Notifications

seen school

night hours

(median [IQR])****

Overall 114 (59.1%) 19.8 [1.1 - 46.1] – 15.9 [4.7 - 47.6] 2.5 [0.6 - 8.1]

Messaging 27 (14.0%) 0.2 [0.03 - 0.8] 0.9% 0.5 [0.2 - 1.0] 0.3 [0.1 - 0.6]

Calls 9 (4.7%) 0.2 [0.03 - 1.2] 6.0% 0.5 [0.2 - 0.8] 0.4 [0.2 - 0.6]

Education 5 (2.6%) 0.1 [0.1 - 3.3] 0.5% 0.3 [0.2 - 0.5] 0.3 [0.2 - 0.5]

Reading 6 (3.1%) 13.9 [6.4 - 21.2] 18.2% 0.3 [0.2 - 1.0] 0.5 [0.2 - 0.6]

Art and Photos 24 (12.4%) 0.2 [0.1 - 2.0] 0.8% 0.3 [0.2 - 0.6] 0.2 [0.1 - 0.4]

Browser 49 (25.4%) 0.8 [0.3 - 4.2] 4.9% 3.5 [1.6 - 5.3] 0.6 [0.2 - 1.2]

Email 11 (5.7%) 0.5 [0.1 - 1.0] 0.6% 1.2 [0.3 - 4.3] 0.6 [0.3 - 1.0]

Social Media 60 (31.1%) 7.8 [1.3 - 29.1] 38.6% 1.2 [0.4 - 4.9] 1.0 [0.3 - 3.2]

Gaming 32 (16.6%) 9.0 [2.1 - 25.6] 29.0% 0.6 [0.2 - 1.1] 0.5 [0.2 - 1.0]

YouTube 54 (28.0%) 4.3 [1.4 - 29.7] 46.9% 0.8 [0.4 - 1.3] 0.4 [0.2 - 0.9]

Streaming Video 14 (7.3%) 2.4 [0.7 - 7.6] 5.1% 0.3 [0.2 - 0.5] 0.2 [0.2 - 0.3]

Music and Audio 18 (9.3%) 0.2 [0.1 - 1.0] 1.0% 0.8 [0.5 - 2.0] 0.2 [0.1 - 0.4]

Shopping 11 (5.7%) 0.2 [0.04 - 2.7] 0.3% 0.3 [0.1 - 0.5] 0.3 [0.2 - 0.6]

Parent Controls 3 (1.6%) 0.2 [0.1 - 4.1] 9.7% 15.3 [2.3 - 17.0] 0.4 [0.3 - 1.0]

*For 193 participants enrolled from Aug. 29 onward; holiday dates removed from analysis.

**Number (percentage) of participants who used the app category during school night hours; this differs from the number of participants who received or viewed

notifications.

***Calculated only among participants who used that app category.

****Calculated only among participants who received or viewed notifications from that app category, respectively.

and logos are trademarks of Common Sense Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (FEIN: 41-2024986).

About Common Sense

Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization

dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing

the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice

they need to thrive in the 21st century. Our independent research

is designed to provide parents, educators, health organizations,

and policymakers with reliable, independent data on children’s use

of media and technology and the impact it has on their physical,

emotional, social, and intellectual development. For more informa-

tion, visit commonsense.org/research.

commonsense.org