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Smartphone Ownership and High Schoolers Persistently Sad or Hopeless · U.S.

Top: adults who own a smartphone, %. Bottom: high school girls and boys persistently sad or hopeless in the past year, %

0 of 3 series are above their level a year earlier

Smartphone ownership from Pew Research Center surveys of U.S. adults; Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. Teen measures from the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of high school students every two years (use does not imply CDC endorsement). Sad or hopeless means almost every day for two weeks or more in a row, enough to stop some usual activities. The two panels have their own scales. Lines moving together do not show that one caused the other. Researchers disagree about what smartphones and social media do to young people's mental health: Jonathan Haidt argues they are a major cause of the rise in teen anxiety and depression; Candice Odgers and Amy Orben argue the evidence shows small or unclear effects.

Smartphones spread through American adults after the early 2010s; over the same years, the share of high school students reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness rose, most of all among girls. The chart shows the timing. It does not show cause, which researchers dispute.