Here’s how long teenage girls spend on their smartphones each day

In Finland, some teenage girls spend almost six hours a day on their smartphones, research reports. — AFP Relaxnews

At a time when screen use is central to concerns in many countries around the world, a new Finnish study has looked at the time spent by teenage girls on their smartphones. And the conclusions are clear: some spend almost six hours a day on their smartphones, with a strong appetite for games and social media, which was found to be a source of addiction, anxiety, fatigue and loneliness.

A team led by a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland, set out to objectively measure the amount of time teenage girls spend on their smartphones, and in particular on social networking sites. To do so, the scientists based their study on no fewer than 1,164 teenage girls aged 15 to 16 from 21 secondary schools in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. Not only were the participants asked to estimate their daily smartphone use, but they were also asked to provide information via screenshots over several days.