People were asked about embarrassing situations like farting in a yoga class or getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
Totally cutting out screens was not the best option for happiness.
Totally cutting out screens was not the best option for happiness.
The happiest teenagers use screens for around an hour a day, new research finds.
More than this is linked to steadily rising levels of unhappiness.
The results come from a survey of over one million US teenagers aged 13-18.
The more time they spent in front of screens — using social media, texting or playing games — the less happy they were.
Their happier peers invested more time in reading, sports and face-to-face social interactions.
Professor Jean M. Twenge, the study’s first author, believes that screen time is driving depression, although the study cannot prove it:
“Although this study can’t show causation, several other studies have shown that more social media use leads to unhappiness, but unhappiness does not lead to more social media use.”
Interestingly, totally cutting out screens was not the best option for happiness — a little less than one hour a day turned out to be the sweet spot.
Professor Twenge said:
“The key to digital media use and happiness is limited use.
Aim to spend no more than two hours a day on digital media, and try to increase the amount of time you spend seeing friends face-to-face and exercising — two activities reliably linked to greater happiness.”
After 2012, teeangers’ self-esteem, life satisfaction and happiness has dropped like a stone compared with similar age groups from the 1990s.
It is probably no coincidence that smartphones are now everywhere, Professor Twenge said:
“By far the largest change in teens’ lives between 2012 and 2016 was the increase in the amount of time they spent on digital media, and the subsequent decline in in-person social activities and sleep.
The advent of the smartphone is the most plausible explanation for the sudden decrease in teens’ psychological well-being.”
The study was published in the journal Emotion (Twenge et al., 2018).
“George is getting upset!”
“George is getting upset!”
Referring to yourself in the third person during periods of stress can aid emotional control, new research finds.
The method was a favourite of Seinfeld sitcom character “George Costanza”, although it didn’t seem to help him much.
Dr Jason Moser, the study’s first author, said:
“Essentially, we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves more similar to how they think about others, and you can see evidence for this in the brain.
That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions.”
The study compared talking to yourself in the third person (“George is getting upset!) with using the more usual first-person language (“I’m getting upset”).
The researchers found that talking about themselves in the third person helped people better control their emotions.
Brain scans showed the areas linked to painful emotional experiences were less active when people used the third-person.
Professor Ethan Kross, study co-author, said:
“What’s really exciting here, is that the brain data from these two complementary experiments suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of emotion regulation.
If this ends up being true — we won’t know until more research is done — there are lots of important implications these findings have for our basic understanding of how self-control works, and for how to help people control their emotions in daily life.”
Oddly, George wasn’t exactly known for his emotional self-control.
Maybe he should have stuck with his father’s mantra: “Serenity now!”
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Moser et al., 2017).
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