Smartphone Too Young: Teens and New Studies Agree

Smartphone Too Young, Teens and New Studies Agree

Smartphone too young is no longer a parent slogan. Teens now say it in surveys. Researchers now measure the cost in sleep, mood, weight, and attention.

1News reported this week that 44% of teenagers in new University of Auckland and University of Otago work believed they received a smartphone too young. Sixty-four percent got one between 11 and 13. They spent about four hours a day on the device. Forty-three percent said notifications interrupted them often, very often, or all of the time.

Lead researcher Dr Samantha Marsh said the pattern matches other work on anxiety, depression, and obesity. “More and more research is beginning to show these interruptions are affecting cognitive ability. So, our kids’ ability to pay attention and stay on task while doing work, and things like that,” she told 1News.

Irish and UK parents hear the same story after school talks. The first phone is not a toy. It is the door to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts.

What the Auckland and Otago research actually found

The published source for this research programme is a 20 November 2025 Public Health Communication Centre briefing by Marsh, Dr Amber Young (Otago), Claire Reid, and Dr Joanna Chu. Horizon Research ran the fieldwork. Smartphone Free Childhood NZ funded the teen survey. They surveyed 540 teens aged 13 to 17 and 533 caregivers of 10 to 17 year olds in September and October 2025.

• 90% of teens used social media.
• Most, 62% began between 10 and 13, “a critical time for brain development, identity formation, and emotional regulation.”
• Average social-media time was 2.5 hours a day.
• 32% spent at least five hours daily on those platforms.
• Almost half 49% said social media disrupted chores, homework, family time, and sleep.
• 22% met criteria for problematic social media use.
• Among girls the figure was one in four.
• 50% of the teens said they had access to social media too young.
• Nearly four in ten 39% said they wished social media had never been invented.
• 47% of teens backed a minimum age of 16.
• Only 25% opposed it. Caregiver support sat at 77%.
• Giving it up looked hard alone, only 32% said it would be easy.
• 62% stated that It looked far easier if friends quit too.

That is the peer-pressure trap in one number. The phone and the feed are not separate problems. The smartphone is how the apps arrive. Read the briefing at the original source: https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/problematic-social-media-use-common-among-nz-teens-government-examines-age-limits.

Teens are not asking for earlier access

Students quoted alongside the coverage described the trap in plain language. One puts the phone two metres away to finish homework. Another stopped hanging out with neighbourhood friends. Social media took the childhood she now regrets.

Katrina Colombié of Smartphone Free Childhood NZ said the average first-smartphone age in New Zealand is 11. Hours on the device are hours not spent with friends or on a hobby.

• Teens in the PHCC sample asked for help, not more access.
• Forty-nine percent wanted safe, supervised spaces built for younger users.
• Forty-four percent wanted school education to help them step back.
• Thirty-nine percent wanted practical guidance for parents.
• They also wanted more after-school activity and places to meet without a feed in their pocket.

Believe them. They are the evidence.

The peer-reviewed picture from 2025 and 2026

“increased checking behaviours and extended use”

A December 2025 Pediatrics paper by Barzilay and colleagues used the US Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort (10,588 youth). At age 12, smartphone owners had higher odds of depression (OR 1.31), obesity (OR 1.40), and insufficient sleep (OR 1.62) than peers without a phone. Each earlier year of ownership raised obesity and short-sleep odds further. Youth who got a phone between 12 and 13 had greater odds of clinical-level psychopathology (OR 1.57) and short sleep (OR 1.50) at 13. Median age of first phone in that cohort was 11. Sixty-four percent already owned one at age 12.

The authors wrote that a smartphone “may grant youth unfettered access to a world for which they may not be ready, without the discipline to effectively manage their own use.” They also wrote that use “contributes to fragmented attention, increased checking behaviours and extended use (particularly in the evenings).”

Original paper: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2025-072941.

“early smartphone ownership, and the social media access it often brings is linked with a profound shift in mind health and wellbeing in early adulthood.”

A July 2025 paper in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities by Tara Thiagarajan used Global Mind Project data on more than 100,000 young adults. Getting a smartphone before 13 tracked with poorer mind-health scores at 18–24, including suicidal thoughts, aggression, detachment from reality, weaker emotional regulation, and low self-worth. Scores fell as first-phone age fell. Early social-media access explained about 40% of the link. Sleep, family strain, and cyberbullying explained more. Thiagarajan wrote: “Our data indicate that early smartphone ownership, and the social media access it often brings is linked with a profound shift in mind health and wellbeing in early adulthood.”

Original paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2025.2518313.

More than half used a phone between midnight and 4am at least once

Night use is not a rumour. Nagata and colleagues, in JAMA Pediatrics (May 2026), used passive sensing on 657 ABCD adolescents. Mean school-night phone use between 10pm and 6am was 50.1 minutes. Social apps (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) took 32.7 of those minutes. More than half used a phone between midnight and 4am at least once.

Original paper: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.1707.

A companion JAMA research letter found more than an hour of phone use during school hours, mostly on social apps, YouTube, and games.

Original paper: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.23235.

None of this is a case of “more research needed” in the parent’s kitchen. The direction is starting to look fairly consistent.

Why 11 to 13 is the worst window

Puberty rewires reward and threat systems. Platforms are built for that wiring. A notification is a pull, not a reminder. At 11, most children cannot hold a long task against that pull which in turn may impact negatively on homework, sleep and real world social engagement. Wait Until 8th exists for this reason. High school is late enough for many families. Australia’s under-16 social-media ban accepts the same fact. Delay the device and you delay the feed. Ireland has no statutory first phone age, however government has recommended that children in Irish National Schools should not be given a smartphone. The Online Safety Code and the UK Online Safety Act raise platform duties of care. They do not collect the handset at 9pm. That job stays with parents and schools.

 

Some Tips to help

• Delay access to the smartphone and hold the line. Waiting is not neglect. It is the protective default move.
• Give a tool, not a portal
• Start with a brick phone, a call and text handset, or a locked watch.
• Keep any later smartphone in the parent’s name.
• Use Apple Screen Time or Google Family Link from day one.
• Strip the App Store.
• Ban TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and similar apps until 16 if other families will hold the line with you.
• Charge every device outside the bedroom.
• Turn notifications off after 8pm on school nights.
• Write the rules before the box is opened and put these rules on paper.
• No accounts under the legal age.
• No phones in bedrooms.
• You may inspect the device without a debate. Sign it. Review it every term.
• Remember if “everyone has one,” find  other families and delay together. Isolation collapses when the group is larger than one child.
• Platforms will not do this work. Age checks still fail. A child with an open smartphone does not need the platform’s permission.

A generation of teens is now old enough to say it. They got the smartphone too young. The studies now say the same.