Objective smartphone monitoring identifies sociodemographic differences in adolescent use

An observational study in Pediatric Research examined sociodemographic differences in objectively measured smartphone use among a national, diverse sample of 233 U.S. adolescents aged 13–18 years. Participants reported their sociodemographic characteristics and installed a passive sensing meter on their smartphones for at least three days. Researchers recorded application use, duration and timing, and used multiple linear regression to examine associations.

In fully adjusted analyses, LGBTQIA+ adolescents had 0.94 additional hours of daily use compared with non-LGBTQIA+ adolescents, including 0.22 additional hours during the evening (20:00–22:59) and 0.39 hours at night (23:00–05:59). Lower parental education was associated with 0.37 additional hours of nighttime use. Adolescents without parental screen-use limits had 1.24 additional hours of daily use, including 0.24 hours in the evening and 0.34 hours at night.

The findings identify differences in when adolescents use smartphones and suggest parental limits as a potentially modifiable marker of use. However, these observational associations do not establish that restrictions reduce use or that greater use causes harm. The supplied report does not present measured health or wellbeing outcomes, and the monitoring period could be as short as three days.