What the research actually says, before we go any further
We would rather you heard this from us than found it later and stopped trusting the rest. The average link between how much people use these things and how they feel is small, and the field is openly arguing about it.
What the research says
Orben A, Przybylski AK (2019). The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173 to 182 doi
Three large datasets, more than 350,000 young people, analysed across every reasonable way of running the analysis rather than one chosen way. The association between technology use and wellbeing was negative but small, explaining at most 0.4 per cent of the differences between people. The authors say the effects are too small to justify changing policy.
Vuorre M, Orben A, Przybylski AK (2021). There is no evidence that associations between adolescents digital technology engagement and mental health problems have increased. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(5), 823 to 835 doi
Three nationally representative datasets covering between 9 and 26 years and more than 430,000 people. The popular claim that this link has been getting worse over time was not supported. The largest change the authors found was smaller than a hundredth of a standard deviation per year, which they describe as a slow drift rather than a rapid shift.
Ferguson CJ, Kaye LK, Branley-Bell D, Markey P (2024). There is no evidence that time spent on social media is correlated with adolescent mental health problems: findings from a meta-analysis. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 55(1) doi
Pooling the studies, the average association was tiny, and the authors call it indistinguishable from statistical noise. They also list their own limits, which we are printing with the result. The studies rely on people estimating their own screen time, which does not match what phones actually record, the search covered only two databases, and some ethnic and cultural groups were under represented.