Engl. transl.: Early mobile phone ownership: influencing the wellbeing of girls and boys in Ireland?

"Children live in a technology-mediated world, and most young people use a variety of technologies in their daily lives. However, despite intense public discourse, we have little empirical evidence on how technology use impacts on children’s development across a number of psycho-social domains. Research that has been conducted tends to be largely small-scale or cross-sectional in nature and most often focused on (young) adults rather than children. Using longitudinal data on one-in-eight Irish children, we use econometric methods to test for associations between early mobile phone ownership and two measures of children’s psycho-social development between 9 and 13 years of age. We examine the Piers Harris Self-Concept Scale, reported by children, and the Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ) score, completed by the primary caregiver. We find no generalised associations between early mobile phone ownership and psycho-social outcomes. However, there is evidence that associations differ by gender and across psycho-social sub-domains. We find no robust associations affecting boys, but girls who receive phones earlier fare less well in terms of their behavioural adjustment and academic self-concept scores at 13 years of age, all else being equal. Further research is needed to identify causal mechanisms and explore possible mediating effects of family/social context"

"There is no significant generalised association between early mobile phone ownership and either measures of self-concept or psychological adjustment as children enter adolescence. The lack of negative associations offers counter-evidence to concerns raised by some theorists that these technologies might present significant new challenges for children (e.g. Twenge, 2017; Lepp, Barkley & Karpinski, 2014; McDaniel & Radesky, 2018). However, when we allow for differing associations in specific psycho-social domains and by gender we do find some grounds for concern. The finding of lower intellectual self-concepscores among girls adopting mobile phones earlier complements previous research (Dempsey, Lyons & McCoy, 2018), which shows that early mobile phone ownership is associated with lower academic scores in adolescence. While the directional nature of this relationship has yet to be researched, one possibility is that reduced academic outcomes resulting from early mobile phone ownership are feeding into girls’ beliefs around their intellectual abilities. The results also show girls adopting mobile phones earlier fare less well in terms of their self-assessed behavioural adjustment. The underlying processes through which early mobile phone ownership may be linked to adolescent girls’ self-concept are less clear. Our bioecological framework highlights the evolving influences on children’s development as they move into adolescence, and the expansion of their interactions beyond the family context. Boys and girls may be using mobile phones in different ways, and using them to interact differently with these broader systems. Perhaps mobile phones are providing girls with greater opportunities for such social comparison, opportunities which are impacting negatively for them. Earlier research has suggested mobile phone owners may experience greater anxiety as a consequence of a perceived obligation to remain constantly ”on”, always connected to a diversity of social networks through their phones (Lepp, Barkley, & Karpinski, 2014). Again, perhaps girls are more vulnerable to these pressures. Finally, while we find some associations between early phone ownership and girls’ self-concept, the impact may be subtle, given that the results do not extend to how parents rate their children’s psycho-social wellbeing"