New research indicates struggling secondary-school pupils have more frequent negative smartphone experiences

Research from UBE (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK), suggests that pupils who report they are having a hard time academically are more likely to have encountered negative experiences from their smartphones. The research included 3,721 pupils from 6 secondary schools, 1,595 parents and 352 secondary school teachers from schools in inner city, suburban and rural settings in and around Bristol. Looking at the pupil data, the research found pupils describing themselves as ‘struggling’ at school having higher rates of negative experiences from using their smartphones than pupils describing themselves as ‘coasting’ or ‘thriving’. Negative experiences included feeling upset, ignored or left out, or receiving nasty messages, to encountering more severe material including suicide/self-harm or eating disorder content, disturbing or illegal content, or being contacted by strangers. The study also indicated that parents were likely to underestimate the frequency of more serious negative experiences their children were encountering online, such as illegal or adult content. Of the teachers included in the research, 64.7% would like there to be far stricter policies around phones in their school, with only 33% happy to keep the policies around the use of phones at school as they are. Read more here.