A new Pew report suggests just over half of teenagers are concerned about smartphone use:

The initial headline finding about the 54% could be interpreted two ways:

1. Only 54% of teenagers are worried about this???
2. This is great that at least half of teenagers are worried about this!!!

But, the additional detail in the survey responses suggests the devil is in the details:

Interestingly, there is little association between teens’ views of how much time they spend on various screens and whether or not they have tried to limit their time on those devices. For instance, 53% of teens who say they spend too much time on their cellphone have ever cut back the amount of time they spend on their phone. That is nearly identical to the 55% of teens who say they spend about the right amount or too little time on their phone who have tried to limit their mobile usage.

In other words, a slight majority of teenagers are worried about their smartphone use but roughly half of that group has “ever” tried to limit their use. Their concerns are not necessarily translating into action. This could be for multiple reasons:

1. Smartphone use is just so ubiquitous. Cutting back or not using the smartphone is tantamount to not being part of the 21st century.
2. Peer pressure. If they do not participate as much, their social world passes them by.
3. They do not have good models to look to as to how to limit their use. (This is where the data from the same report on parental concerns is interesting.)

This seems to be consistent with some of the work my colleagues and I have done regarding social network site use. Users may be able to articulate problems they face using social media and smartphones but very few of them opt out of the realm altogether because there are clear benefits to continuing.

How exactly teenagers and other smartphone and social media users will learn to employ what they would consider appropriate boundaries in using these devices and platforms is an open question.