July 4, 1776: the United States declared independence from Britain.
July 20, 1969: humans landed on the moon.
On supporting science journalism
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November 9, 1989: the Berlin Wall came down.
Will we look back on June 29, 2007, as one of those watershed dates? Only time will tell, but the day the first iPhone came out certainly changed our psyches forever.
Studies, magazine articles, and cultural rumblings tell us that technology is making us more anxious. A new study in the journal Emotion of over 1 million American high school students found that teens who spend more time on screens and less time on non-screen activities like face-to-face socializing, exercise, or homework were psychologically worse off. What’s more, the study found that when kids reported a shift to more screen-based activities, a decline in happiness followed, implying a cause-and-effect relationship.
But how exactly does this happen? What is the nitty-gritty of technology leading to anxiety?
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Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
