Study finds minimal link between smartphone use and adult well-being

What is it about?

A new study led by researchers at the University of Oregon in collaboration with Google Research has found little evidence linking smartphone use with mental well-being in adults. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study analyzed more than 250,000 days of smartphone usage data from more than 10,000 U.S. adults age 18 and older, making it the largest and most comprehensive investigation to date of how objectively measured smartphone behavior relates to mood and well-being. The research team, led by Nicholas Allen, the Ann Swindells Professor of Clinical Psychology and director of the University of Oregon’s Center for Digital Mental Health, used objective smartphone data rather than self-reports, which have been shown to be unreliable indicators of actual phone use. Over a four-week period, participants’ smartphone activity — including screen time, app categories and unlock frequency — was passively recorded and paired with daily mood check-ins. The researchers used statistical techniques to investigate potential relationships between smartphone use and subsequent mood and mental health symptoms across time. While younger adults showed a slightly stronger link between social media use and lower mood in data that looked at a single point in time, that link did not hold up over longer time periods. In fact, across both group and individual analyses, the effects were either weak or statistically insignificant.

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Photo by Manuel Gonzalez on Unsplash

Photo by Manuel Gonzalez on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is important because it provides the most comprehensive, data-driven evidence to date on the relationship between smartphone use and mental well-being—challenging long-held assumptions that frequent phone use harms mental health. By leveraging objective data from over 250,000 days of smartphone activity rather than unreliable self-reports, the research moves the debate beyond speculation to evidence grounded in real-world behavior. Its findings have major implications for public discourse, policy, and technology design, suggesting that efforts to improve mental health should focus less on screen-time reduction and more on the quality and context of digital engagement. The study also demonstrates the power of industry–academic partnerships to generate large-scale, transparent, and publicly available datasets that can advance the science of digital well-being.

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