WASHINGTON: Children who are given smartphones before the age of 12 are more likely to develop certain health problems, researchers report.
According to a piece published by the journal Pediatrics, kids studied at age 12 were at a 1.3 times higher risk of depression, a 1.6 times higher risk of insufficient sleep and a 1.4 times higher risk of obesity, compared with children who didn’t yet have smartphones.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Columbia University analyzed data from over 10,500 participants from childhood to adolescence from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study to come to the conclusion, per the findings published on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) website.
The ABCD study “is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States,” per the study’s website. Dr. Ran Barzilay, lead author of the Pediatrics journal study and child-adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, explained that just over 60% of kids studied had their own smartphone by age 12, adding that the median age of getting a smartphone was 11 years old.
He tells PEOPLE of the study, “We only analyzed the data collected when the kids were ages 12-13, collected between 2018-2021.”
In a video published on the Pediatrics website, Dr. Barzilay pointed out that 95% of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 owned a smartphone in the U.S. in 2024, citing the Pew Research Center.
The survey found that nearly a third of kids between 8 and 10 years old owned smartphones, while more than half of the kids surveyed between the ages of 11 and 12 had them.
12% of parents with children between 5 and 7 years old said their kids had smartphones, while 8% of parents with children younger than 5 years old said their kids had them.
Published in The NEWS on December 3, 2025.
