Experts warn of rising mental health risks as teens' smartphone use becomes more problematic

Growing concerns over the impact of excessive smartphone use on adolescent wellbeing highlight the need for household strategies to promote healthier digital habits and protect mental health.

Phones are now woven into almost every part of daily life, from banking and travel updates to staying in touch with family and friends. Yet Danielle Einstein, an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University, argues that the line between useful and harmful use is crossed when screens begin to shape mood, crowd out real-world experiences or weaken face-to-face relationships.

Teenagers are especially exposed. Einstein says the adolescent brain is still developing the skills needed for planning, weighing consequences and delaying rewards, while sensitivity to peer approval is at its peak. That makes young people more vulnerable to the constant rewards of alerts, messages and social feedback, and to the emotional churn that can come with endless streams of new information. Pew Research Center has found that 54% of U.S. teens believe they spend too much time on their cellphones, while many say they check for messages as soon as they wake up and feel uneasy without their phones nearby.

The warning signs are often easy to spot. A teenager who fills every spare minute by scrolling, drifts away during conversation, repeatedly puts off homework or chores, or seems exhausted much of the time may be showing that device use has become more than a habit. Research cited by King’s College London has linked problematic smartphone use with higher rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia among teens, reinforcing concerns that heavy use can affect more than attention alone.

Einstein describes this as an “addictive pull” created by unpredictable rewards such as likes, messages or other notifications. Over time, she says, even the sight of a phone or a lit screen can trigger the urge to check it. That pattern can become especially entrenched in familiar spaces such as the bedroom, where devices are often used late at night and where poor sleep can feed the cycle further. A review in Frontiers in Psychiatry similarly links excessive smartphone use with sleep problems, lower cognitive control, poor emotion regulation and other mental health concerns.

Her advice begins with adults. Parents cannot reasonably expect teenagers to cut back if the household treats constant connectivity as normal. Practical steps include putting devices out of reach when arriving home, keeping phones away during family time and limiting distracting apps to a single shared device in one room of the house. Other expert-backed guidance, including from Consumer Reports and a study in Acta Paediatrica, points to the same basic measures: silencing notifications, using do not disturb mode, keeping phones out of the bedroom and building small, repeatable habits that make life away from the screen easier to maintain.