One in three teenagers (36%) report waking up at least once per night and checking their phones, according to a new survey of 1,000 parents and their kids concerning from Common Sense Media.
The survey was about “parents, teens, screens, and sleep.” And if you think taking your phone to bed with you is crazy, you’re obviously not a teenager (or a Millennial).
Teenage dreams
A majority (68%) of teenagers take their devices to bed with them, meaning they keep it within reach. A third of those actually sleep with the phones in the bed.
While a third of teens are waking up once a night to check their phone, a quarter of their parents do the same thing. And 62% of parents sleep with their phones in reach.
What are they doing in the nighttime hours when they wake up and check their phones? Both parents and teenagers reported mostly social-media or responding to a notification (turn those off!). Some simply couldn’t sleep.
More than half of parents (52%) say they spent too much time on their phones. That’s up 23 percentage points since 2016, when Common Sense conducted a similar survey.
However, teenagers aren’t worried. More of them think they spend just the right amount of time of their phone (47%, as compared with 29% in 2016).
However, this chart is revealing.
Still, everyone in the household reported feeling distracted. The majority of parents (54%) and kids (58%) say they are distracted by their mobile devices once a day or more. Parents feel that their kids are distracted (69%), and kids feel that their parents are distracted (44%).
However, the majority of family members don’t think their constant cell use is hurting their relationships. Parents (55%) and kids (72%) says that the use of their mobile devices has had “no impact” on their family relationships. Still, that leaves a third of parents who do think their child’s cell-phone use has hurt their relationship (only 9% of kids think their relationship with a parent has been hurt because of mobile device use).
Maybe families could start by banning phones at dinner — and in bed?
Originally published on The Ladders.
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