The Impact of Excessive Smartphone Usage on Students’ Academic Performance and Mental Health
Jason Z. Shen
International Department, Beijing HuiXian School
Social Studies
Teacher Bianca
October 11, 2024

In recent times, smartphone use has gone up a lot, especially among students, and it’s affecting different parts of their lives. Research done by Jean M. Twenge and some others has showed how much this digital dependency influences things like academic success and mental well-being. This essay, aims to explore how excessive use of smartphones is connected to poor academic performance and problems with mental health in students. Understanding the importantness, as it is going to affect how young people live and work in the future.

One of the biggest worries is how smartphones can impact students’ grades and performance in school. Researchers have said students who spend lots of hours on their phones, mainly on apps like TikTok, Weibo etc., tend to have bad grades and a tough time staying focused in their work. Jean M. Twenge mentions this link in her book iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood pointed out, “students who spend more than five hours a day on their phones are twice as likely to have poor academic performance compared to those who use it less” (page 162). This means smartphones are distracting them from studying, which causes procrastination and makes it harder to concentrate in class.

Also, being glued to your phone all the time has been linked to higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. The research in her book iGen showed that Generation Z, the kids growing up with smartphones always in hand, report more mental health issues than older generations did. Lots of studies support this idea. For example, The relationship between cell phone use, academic performance, anxiety, and Satisfaction with Life in college students written by Andrew Lepp discovered that college students who were on their phones a lot tended to feel more anxious and less happy about their life overall. This might happen because, well, they compare themselves to others online, feel pressure to always reply instantly, and get overwhelmed by too much information.

Twenge’s book iGen also explains how the more time students spend on smartphones, the less they interact face-to-face, which is actually important for good mental health. They often swap real-life friends with online ones, and that leads to feeling lonely and cut off from the real world. All of this adds up to the growing mental health problems among young people today.

Lepp, A., Barkley, J. E., & Karpinski, A. C. (2014). The relationship between cell phone use, academic performance, anxiety, and satisfaction with life in college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 343-350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.049

Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why today’s super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy–and completely unprepared for adulthood. Atria Books.