Lifestyle & Culture

Screentime: How much is too much?

By Christian Payne

Eighty-seven percent of Americans owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center. 

They spend an average of 5.4 hours a day on those devices, according to Verizon, which also warns of smartphone addiction and notes research linking smartphone overuse to anxiety and other behavioral health problems.

And 47% of Americans admitted that they are addicted to their phones, according to a tech expert’s January 2022 analysis in Reviews.org, also finding that 35% use or look at their phone while driving and 74% of Americans feel uneasy leaving their phone at home.

So, what’s an everyday person’s view of how helpful or harmful all that screentime is?

There may be no right or wrong answer to that, said Paola Girasol, 20, a warehouse worker at an Amazon distribution center in Staten Island distribution center. 

“I try not to be on my phone unless I’m reading or doing something productive,” said Paolo, adding that she monitors her little sister’s screen time whenever they’re at home together. Otherwise, she sits “there the whole time on her phone and forgets that she wants to play and misses out on a great game because of it”

Joe Sheck, 53, who lives in the East Village with his wife and two daughters, said he spends six hours a day on his phone texting and searching for information on Google. That activity helps him maintain relationships. But he believes getting addicted to a smartphone can’t be a good thing. He does not have any social media apps on his phone, and he monitors his daughters’ usage of social media. 

“She is quite good about keeping her phone under control,” said Sheck of his 17-year-old son. As his 11-year-old gets older, he will more closely monitor her usage, too.

Jayde Margulis, 21, a 2022 NYU graduate, spends about six hours a day using social media apps Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook; the Tinder dating app; and various entertainment streaming services. She is mindful that it costs money to do much of that, Margulis said. 

But because she also uses her phone to buy clothes, food and other daily essentials, she is grateful for the ease it gives her, as a consumer. “It makes things a whole lot easier,” she said, of her smartphone. “But it diminishes from relationships with other people.” 

When becomes a parent, she said, she will monitor her children’s usage of smartphones and other electronics until their teenage years to make sure they’re not consuming inappropriate material on the internet.