Psychological Influences of Smartphones on People Who Have Grown Up With Them

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The term “smartphone” was coined in 1992, nearly fifteen years before the first Apple iPhone would be released, and twenty-eight years before the global pandemic of 2020, when social distancing has kept people separated, but smartphones have held us together. In the book, Freak the Mighty, Freak, a young boy with a minuscule body and enormous mind, makes this statement, “Television, the opiate of the masses ... Opiate, a drug,” he says. “Massive, that means large and heavy. Thus television is the drug of fatheads. Opiate of the masses.” (Philbrick, 1993) Freak lives in a pre-smartphone era, yet he identifies an acute observation of the effect of technology on peoples’ brains. Television used to be the opiate of the masses. Now, smartphones are the drug for fat heads, contributing to social interaction, anxiety, depression, and lack of focus.

The Gateway to Mental Health Services released an article stating that millennials, the first generation to grow up with smartphones, are “the most anxious generation.” (Foster, 2020) Why do we have such anxious young people? Social media and smartphones. Social media, typically accessed on your smartphone device, increase expectations of a dazzling life and heighten unattainable beauty standards, thus setting individuals up for disappointment and shame. Social media users can begin to feel depressed about their less-than-glamorous lives and anxious about what others will think of them when they find out how unromantic everyday life is. 

The quick click phenomenon has inebriated young people’s focused attention. University of Texas professor, Adrian Ward, conducted a study where he gave one control group of college students a test without having their phone nearby, and a second control group taking the same test with their phones turned off of the table next to them. Ward discovered that “Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smartphone, but that process — the process of requiring yourself to not think about something — uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. It’s a brain drain” (Ward, 6AD). This brain drain takes away from millennials and generation z’s ability to stay focused on one topic. 

The psychological effect on individuals who have grown up with smartphones is not a positive one. While there are redeeming qualities, our youth are struggling with depression, lack of ability to focus, and social anxiety. Smartphones are working as the opiate of millennials and generation Z, addicting young people to unfocused, anxious, despondent existences.