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Influence of Smartphone Use on Teenagers’ Mental Health

Part 3: The Story of My Research

It took me two weeks and a half to finish my research on the influence of smartphone use

on teenagers' mental health. In the first stages of my research, I opted to work independently to

have a maximum concentration on my work for efficiency. As soon as I selected my research

topic, I went straight ahead and defined my research goal, which played an essential role in

guiding my work; specifically, I was to focus my study on the extent to which the use of

smartphones contributes to mental health issues among teenagers? Then how does the duration

of smartphone utilization contribute to mental health among teenagers? Also, explore if the

smartphones use among teenagers is addictive? Lastly, come up with solutions to combat mental

issues caused by excessive smartphone use by teenagers.

In the first place, I landed on an article that had researched my topic on a website called

PubMed Central. The report laid the base for my research. The information that I found in the

article gave me an insight into where I was to start and focus more. It provided the statistics on

how teenagers in different countries have been affected mentally by smartphones, which led to

the increase of suicidal cases among the youths in the US, Canada, Germany, and most

developed and developing countries (Gamble, p.48). With this information, I needed to do

further studies on other sources to gain more grounds to make my research successful and add

more to my previous understanding of the research topic, where I understood that the behaviour
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that teenagers portray now is a result of massive dependency on smartphones. Since I have a

passion for reading, I found it easy and exciting to conduct my further studies. I found another

article from Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (CBSN). This article focused

on the diverse impacts of the problematic use of smartphones on teenagers (Horwood et al., p.

275). The report was impressive but not to my satisfaction because it did not provide sufficient

information about my topic. The article briefly touched on teenagers' addiction aspect of

smartphones, especially school-going teenagers.

Time was not on my side by the time I was done analyzing the two documents, pushing

me to take more decisive action to meet the stated deadline and still have a research paper that is

sufficient in knowledge. I decided to shift my attention to medical magazines that have talked

about my research topic so that I could take one or two points from there. I opted to go for

Lancet magazine because they are the most famous magazine globally. I was a little disappointed

by the results from the website, which did not meet my expectations because it comprised

information I already had. After the disappointment, I was in fear that I was not going to

complete my research in time.

I decided to seek the teacher’s assistance during one of the classes. Luckily enough, the

teacher proposed that I should also consider searching for information from the school libraries'

literature and journals. Notably, from the vast availability of resources in the school’s library, I

was able to get two journals that were relevant to my topic of research. I drove the first

information from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The

journal contained an article that talked about the influences of smartphones and computer use on

early adolescents' health-related quality of life. However, the report provided was informative

because it focused on answering the research question of how the duration of smartphone
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utilization contributes to mental health and other health diseases among teenagers (Cheung et al.,

p. 2100). For instance, it proved that teenagers who spent more time actively online had poor

physical and mental dominance outcomes. It took me about three days to understand and analyze

the information thoroughly.

The second source from the library was a (CMAJ) Canadian Medical Association Journal

which analyzed smartphones, social media use, and youth mental health. The article’s

information was critical because it broadened my understanding of my topic and provided a

broader perspective on my research goals. Thus, assisting me to answer the question of the extent

to which the use of smartphones contributes to mental health issues among teenagers (Abi-

Jaoude et al., p. 136). Notably, it pointed out that how smartphones affected teenagers' mental

health was adverse to influencing the teenagers to harm themselves and commit suicide.

Five days later, during our Tuesday class, I dedicated that time to finalizing my research

by distributing questionnaires that I intended to collect people’s views and more so my

colleagues and other students together with teachers on what could be the possible solutions to

the effect of teenagers addiction to the smartphones. In addition to the results from the

questionnaire, I combine it with my own opinion on how this problem could be averted

according to my previous understanding.

From the research, I have gotten the answer to my question on the extent to which

smartphones have contributed to the mental health of teenagers, who are the future of the world.

I also found out that the teenagers themselves were in denial that they were suffering, which

increased the complexity of the problem. The research was a success because it enabled me to

come up with possible solutions which were not necessarily depriving the teenagers of the
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chance to explore the world but guiding them on how to use these devices that have proven to be

dangerous. Generally, it is essential to control and monitor how teenagers use their smartphones.
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Work Cited

Abi-Jaoude, Elia, Karline Treurnicht Naylor, and Antonio Pignatiello. "Smartphones, social media use

and youth mental health." Cmaj 192.6 (2020): E136-E141.

Cheung, Mei-chun, Janelle SK Lai, and Joanne Yip. "Influences of Smartphone and Computer

Use on Health-Related Quality of Life of Early Adolescents." International Journal of

Environmental Research and Public Health 19.4 (2022): 2100.

Gamble, Alyson. "PubMed Central (PMC)." The Charleston Advisor 19.2 (2017): 48-54.

Horwood, Sharon, and Jeromy Anglim. "Emotion regulation difficulties, personality, and

problematic smartphone use." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 24.4

(2021): 275-281.