How Phones Are Making Us More Lonely and Addicted with Meredith David, PhD

What is the social cost of looking at your phone when in the company of other people? Is smartphone and social media use making us less connected, more lonely, and addicted to the endless videos on our feed? On this episode of Screen Deep, host Kris Perry discusses the ways people are becoming more attached to their phones and less connected to others with Dr. Meredith David, Associate Professor of Marketing at Baylor University. Drawing on her diverse portfolio of research, Dr. David shares evidence on how social media use contributes to feelings of loneliness and FOMO, how design features of popular short form video platforms facilitate addictive behaviors, and how “phubbing” – phone-snubbing – negatively impacts a myriad of social relationships.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What a nine year study shows about how social media use and loneliness influence each other. 
• How a “negative cycle” can form between people using their phones in front of each other, reinforcing more phone use in front of others.
• What a consensus study from more than 120 leading researchers says about social media, sleep, and attention.
• Why short-form video platforms are so addictive – and which platform is designed to be the most addictive to use.
• How excessive use of short-form video platforms affects self-control and contributes to what many people call “brain rot.”

For more resources and research on this topic visit the Learn and Explore section of the Children and Screens website (https://www.childrenandscreens.org)

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Music: 'Life in Silico' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au