NPR

How Smartphones Are Making Kids Unhappy

Psychologist Jean Twenge has observed dramatic shifts in behavior among children who go through adolescence with smartphones. They're spending less time with friends and reporting greater anxiety.
Psychologist Jean Twenge says smartphones have brought about dramatic shifts in behavior among the generation of children who grew up with the devices. / Getty Images

For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012: "iGen."

She says members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less, they learn to drive later and

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