Jean Twenge Has The Smartphone Destroyed A Generation Analysis

The Dangers of Smartphone Use in Children
Jean M. Twenge, author of the essay “Has The Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?,” and an American psychology professor at San Diego State University, discusses how the use of smartphones by the younger generation affects their mental health. Twenge discusses many negative trends caused by smartphone use among young people, such as less face-to-face interaction, increased depression, and suicidal tendencies.
Twenge lists activities she partook in during her childhood, by comparing them to the activities today's generation of children ‘iGen’ do. She explains how her childhood was a lot happier than the iGen children's. The biggest difference between the two generations is the number of children that have

Twenge exemplifies how obsessed children are with their phones. They sleep with it right next to them to always have access to it. However, one girl’s phone overheated, while she was sleeping, and it melted her bedsheets (Twenge 296).
Twenge also discusses more serious issues for iGen people that are caused from smartphone use. Children are more sleep deprived because they stay up too late on their phones. Access to phones causes children to cyberbully others. Children spend less time with each other, because they are on their phones, and are becoming depressed. Evidence has shown that teen depression and suciede rates have skyrocked since 2011 (Twenge 291).
Due to many of the factors Twenge lists and describes, she points out that as generations continue, children are acting younger and younger. Children want to delay adulthood for as long as possible. Children have become homebodies because their social lives come from their smartphone use (Twenge 293).
Changes over generations, with the development and overuse of technology, had created many negativities for growing children and

Meeting a stranger, from an online platform, can cause many safety risks, as you do not yet know anything about this person. Twenge’s reference to teen dating states that in-person dates for high schoolers went from 85 percent for Boomers and GenXers to 56 percent for teens in 2015 (Twenge 292). Many teens do want to experience dating, but having the “get to know you” stage of a relationship take place online, eliminates the many safety factors of meeting up with a stranger. So many news stories headline how dates went wrong, so despite Twenge’s argument, the iGen are being