What iGen Says About Smartphones and Kids: What Parents Need to Know

Jean Twenge’s 2017 book iGen: Why
Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing
Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant,
Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared
for Adulthood is one of the most important
and most data-rich books ever written
about the impact of smartphones on
young people. Published seven years
before Haidt’s The Anxious Generation —
and drawing on decades of large-scale
survey data — iGen provides the foundational
research base that much of the subsequent
debate about smartphones and adolescent
mental health has built upon.

This article covers what iGen says
about smartphones and kids — the key
findings, the key arguments, and what
the book means for parents raising
children in the digital age.

Who Is Jean Twenge

Jean Twenge is a professor of psychology
at San Diego State University and
one of the leading researchers on
generational differences in mental
health, attitudes, and behavior. Her
research draws on large-scale surveys —
including the Monitoring the Future
survey, which has tracked American
high school students annually since
1975 — and the Youth Risk Behavior
Surveillance Survey.

Research context: Twenge’s work
is notable for its scale and its
longitudinal nature — tracking changes
in adolescent attitudes and wellbeing
over decades rather than relying
on small cross-sectional studies.
This gives her conclusions significant
weight — though they have also attracted
criticism similar to that directed at Haidt.

What iGen Is

iGen — the generation Twenge identifies —
refers to those born between approximately
1995 and 2012 — the first generation
to grow up with smartphones as a
normal part of childhood and adolescence.
Twenge named this generation iGen —
before the term Gen Z became more
widely used — to reflect the centrality
of the internet and smartphone to
their formative experience.

Key features Twenge identifies
in iGen compared to previous generations:

Growing up more slowly —
spending less time on adult
activities — driving, dating,
drinking, working — during adolescence.

More time spent online and
on smartphones — and less time
in face-to-face social interaction.

Higher rates of anxiety and
depression — particularly among girls.

Less time spent on homework —
but also less time socializing
in person.

Sleeping less — with smartphone
use a primary driver.

Feeling less happy — particularly
when compared to Millennials at the same age.

The Central Argument About Smartphones

Twenge’s central argument in iGen
is that the smartphone — and the
always-connected, social media-saturated
experience it enables — is the primary
driver of the significant changes
she documents in adolescent wellbeing,
behavior, and mental health.

The evidence Twenge presents:

The timing correlation. Research
finds that the changes Twenge
documents — declining happiness,
increasing depression and anxiety,
declining in-person socializing —
accelerated dramatically around
2012 — coinciding with the
point at which smartphones became
ubiquitous among American adolescents.

The dose-response relationship.
Research finds that adolescents
who spend more time on smartphones
and social media show worse
mental health outcomes — and
those who spend more time
on non-screen activities show
better outcomes. This dose-response
relationship strengthens the
causal argument.

The activity replacement finding.
Research finds that smartphone
use has specifically replaced
the activities most associated
with adolescent happiness and
mental health — in-person social
interaction, physical activity,
reading, and adequate sleep.

The gender finding. Research
finds that the mental health
effects of smartphone use are
significantly more pronounced
in girls — who use social media
more heavily and who show
greater sensitivity to social
comparison and social evaluation.

Key Findings About Smartphones
and Adolescent Wellbeing

Research by Twenge in iGen finds:

More screen time — less happiness.
Research consistently finds
that adolescents who spend
more time on screens — particularly
smartphones and social media —
show significantly lower happiness
and life satisfaction than
those who spend less time on screens.

More screen time — more depression
and anxiety. Research finds
that each additional hour of
daily social media use is associated
with progressively worse mental
health outcomes — with effects
becoming significant above
two to three hours daily.

More screen time — less sleep.
Research finds that smartphone
use is one of the most significant
drivers of adolescent sleep
deprivation — with each additional
hour of daily smartphone use
associated with significantly
reduced nightly sleep.

More screen time — less in-person
socializing. Research finds
that smartphone use has significantly
displaced in-person social
interaction — with iGen adolescents
spending significantly less
time with friends in person
than previous generations at the same age.

Non-screen activities — more
happiness. Research finds a
consistent pattern — activities
associated with happiness in
iGen adolescents are overwhelmingly
non-screen activities — in-person
social interaction, physical
activity, religious attendance,
reading print media.

Key Findings About Specific
Platforms and Activities

Research by Twenge finds:

Social media is particularly
harmful — especially for girls.
Research finds that social
media use — particularly Instagram —
is most strongly associated
with poor mental health outcomes
in adolescent girls — through
social comparison, social evaluation
anxiety, and appearance-based distress.

Gaming is less harmful for boys.
Research finds that boys’ predominant
digital activity — gaming —
shows smaller negative mental
health effects than girls’
predominant digital activity —
social media. This gender difference
in digital activity significantly
explains the gender difference
in mental health outcomes.

Texting has mixed effects.
Research finds that text messaging —
particularly with known friends —
shows smaller negative effects
than social media — because
it involves genuine one-to-one
communication rather than
the broadcast social comparison of social media.

What iGen Says Parents Should Do

Twenge’s recommendations in iGen
are broadly consistent with Haidt’s —
though iGen was published seven years
earlier and informed much of Haidt’s thinking:

Limit social media — particularly
for girls. Research supports
specific daily limits on social
media use — with Twenge’s data
suggesting effects become significant
above two hours daily.

Protect sleep. Research supports
phone-free bedrooms and screen-free
time before bed as the most
immediately actionable intervention.

Prioritize in-person social
connection. Research supports
actively facilitating in-person
social activities — as the
most consistently happiness-associated
activity for adolescents.

Delay social media as long
as possible. Research supports
delaying social media access —
particularly during the most
vulnerable early adolescent years.

How iGen Relates to The Anxious Generation

Research context: iGen and The
Anxious Generation are complementary
rather than competing works:

iGen provides the foundational
data — the large-scale survey
evidence of the changes in
adolescent wellbeing and behavior
that Haidt then builds his
causal argument upon.

The Anxious Generation provides
the causal mechanism — the
specific argument about why
smartphones caused the changes
that Twenge documents.

Together — the two books present
the most comprehensive research-based
case for the negative effects
of smartphone-based childhood
on adolescent mental health available.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Screen Time and Happiness Assessment
What it is: A deliberate honest
assessment of the relationship
between screen time and happiness
in your specific child — applying
Twenge’s core research finding.

How to do it: This week honestly observe:

Does your child seem happier
after in-person social activities —
or after screen time?
Does your child’s mood change
after social media use?
Does your child report feeling
happy — or does screen time
seem associated with mood decline?

Use your observations as data —
alongside Twenge’s research.

Why it works: Research on
parenting effectiveness consistently
finds that combining general
research evidence with specific
observation of the individual
child produces significantly
better parenting decisions than either alone.

Practice 2 — The In-Person Social Investment
What it is: A deliberate weekly
investment in in-person social
connection — the activity Twenge’s
research finds most consistently
associated with adolescent happiness.

How to do it: Once each week —
facilitate one genuine in-person
social experience for your child:

A get-together with a friend.
A family social activity.
A community activity — sport,
club, group.
Any context where genuine
face-to-face social interaction occurs.

Why it works: Research by
Twenge consistently finds that
in-person social interaction —
more than any other activity —
is associated with adolescent
happiness and wellbeing. Investing
in in-person social connection
is the most directly happiness-promoting
parenting action available.

Practice 3 — The Sleep Protection Step
What it is: A deliberate implementation
of the sleep protection measure
most strongly supported by Twenge’s research.

How to do it: This week implement
one specific sleep protection measure:

Phone charging outside the bedroom.
A specific screen-off time —
at least one hour before bed.
A consistent bedtime — held
even on weekends.

Why it works: Research by
Twenge consistently finds that
sleep deprivation — driven significantly
by smartphone use — is one
of the most significant contributors
to adolescent unhappiness, anxiety,
and depression. Protecting sleep
is the most immediately impactful
single intervention available.

The Bottom Line

iGen provides one of the most
comprehensive and most data-rich
accounts of how smartphones
have changed adolescent life —
and adolescent mental health.
Twenge’s findings — that more
screen time is associated with
less happiness, more depression
and anxiety, less sleep, and
less in-person socializing —
are drawn from large-scale
longitudinal surveys that give
them significant weight.

For parents — iGen’s most important
practical messages are: limit
social media — particularly
for girls; protect sleep —
particularly through phone-free
bedrooms; invest in in-person
social connection; and delay
social media as long as possible.
These recommendations — drawn
from Twenge’s data — are broadly
consistent with Haidt’s recommendations
and are strongly research-supported.

Sources

Twenge, J. M. (2017).
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected
Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious,
More Tolerant, Less Happy —
and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.
Atria Books.

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K.
(2018). Associations between
screen time and lower psychological
well-being among children and adolescents.
Preventive Medicine Reports, 12, 271–283.

Haidt, J. (2024).
The Anxious Generation.
Penguin Press.

Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K.
(2019). The association between
adolescent well-being and digital
technology use.
Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173–182.