US study links smartphone ownership at 12 to 49% higher reported symptom risk at 14
HealthUnverifiedUpdated:
An unverified report on a US study of nearly 9,000 adolescents says those who owned a smartphone at 12 had a 49% higher risk of self-reporting any eating-disorder symptom by age 14 than peers who did not own one at 12.
Associations with reported symptoms from age 12 to 14
The report describes an analysis from an ongoing US longitudinal adolescent study. At age 12, smartphone owners had a 36% higher chance of reporting any eating-disorder symptom and a 61% higher prevalence of binge-eating symptoms than non-owners. By age 14, the reported association with any symptom remained: those who had owned a smartphone at 12 had a 49% greater reported risk.
The available report does not provide a before-and-after measure of symptoms for the same group. It compares adolescents who owned a smartphone at age 12 with those who did not.
The reported longitudinal analysis found that smartphone ownership at age 12 was associated with a 49% greater risk of reporting any eating-disorder symptom at age 14. It does not establish that smartphone ownership caused the symptoms.
Self-reported associations do not establish causation
The finding tracks an association across early adolescence rather than only at one age. Its limits are important: symptoms were self-reported, the analysis did not assess clinical diagnoses, and it cannot show that smartphones or social media caused the differences.
Sources
- ScienceAlertKids Who Got a Smartphone at 12 Were 49% More Likely to Report Eating Disorder Symptoms by 14Read source →