![\"Teen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Teen-girl-lying-in-bed-at-night-and-looking-at-the-glowing-screen-of-smartphone-1200x800.jpeg\"\/)
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(\u00a9 De Visu – stock.adobe.com)<\/p>\n
In A Nutshell<\/p>\n
Smartphone use among children is linked to potential mental health risks, including information overload.<\/p>\n
With easy access to constant communication tools, children are often overwhelmed by irrelevant content (or \u201cnoise\u201d), which hinders their ability to focus on meaningful information.<\/p>\n
Balancing technology use, limiting screen time, and fostering open communication between parents and children may be key to reducing the negative impact of smartphones.<\/p>\n
More than 80%\u00a0of children aged ten to 12 in the United Kingdom own a smartphone, according to a recent report by media watchdog\u00a0Ofcom<\/a>. Many people think this is a bad thing: there has been\u00a0much debate<\/a>\u00a0about whether children should be allowed to have smartphones.<\/p>\n The discussions around the potential negative aspects of children\u2019s smartphone use\u00a0often focus<\/a>\u00a0on the possible mental health risks<\/a> of social media, or how spending too much time glued to a screen<\/a> rather than in nature<\/a> or interacting with others might affect children. On the other hand, smartphones may help children\u00a0stay connected<\/a>\u00a0and interact with supportive communities.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s another aspect to this debate: information overload.<\/p>\n My research is in the science of information. Here we encounter one of the most\u00a0fundamental laws of nature<\/a>, commonly known as the\u00a0second law of thermodynamics<\/a>. It says that over time, order is replaced by disorder, and information is overshadowed by noise.<\/p>\n To understand this idea in the context of messaging, think of the development of communication facilities. A long time ago, when it was difficult to disseminate information \u2013 mainly through handwritten letters that might take months to arrive \u2013 people would do so only if the information was of importance.<\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t expect a friend living a thousand miles away to inform you that their dog had just barked at a neighbor\u2019s cat if it meant that missive would physically have to make a journey of a thousand miles.<\/p>\n Printing, wire communications, the internet and mobile devices<\/a> have changed this. With each innovation that eases communication, the quality of information that is transmitted reduces.<\/p>\n Nowadays, much of the information surrounding us is noise. By noise, I mean insignificant and irrelevant information that no one needs to know. Nowadays, we know not only that our friend\u2019s neighbor\u2019s cat has been antagonizing a dog, but about the lives of the cats and dogs of countless internet acquaintances and strangers.<\/p>\n Increasing noise contamination is a consequence of the law of nature that cannot be beaten easily, if at all. That said, with concerted efforts, sometimes the effect can be reversed momentarily.<\/p>\n Measuring Information Content<\/p>\n If irrelevant and insignificant information is \u201cnoise,\u201d we can \u2013 using the terminology of\u00a0communication theory<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 call information of interest the \u201csignal.\u201d<\/p>\n Imagine a child wanting to look up specific information on a smartphone for a school project \u2013 one of the planets in the Solar System<\/a>, perhaps. The webpage they end up on contains a huge amount of unrelated information \u2013 reader comments, links to other content, maybe advertisements or videos. To reach the knowledge they are looking for, they will have to wade through, and end up absorbing, a huge amount of unnecessary information.<\/p>\n You can think of the proportion of relevant versus irrelevant or incorrect information as the signal-to-noise ratio. A\u00a0calculation shows that<\/a>\u00a0typically, if the noise level doubles, you will have to consume about twice the amount of information to obtain the same level of relevant knowledge. That amounts to doubling your screen time.<\/p>\n So, if the noise level were to grow exponentially, as is inevitable from the second law, then you\u2019ll have to consume exponentially more messages to get the same amount of relevant information. You\u2019ll have to be glued to your smartphone 24-7. This is obviously something we want to avoid<\/a> \u2013 for us and our children.<\/p>\n To make matters worse, the information we consume will affect\u00a0what we consume next<\/a>, and information overload can negatively affect this process. When this happens, it becomes all too easy to end up hopping from one site to another without gathering any useful information.<\/p>\n So is there a way out? Well, the answer, in theory, is simple. We just have to keep the level of noise low.<\/p>\n Biological systems in natural environments \u2013 that is, without human intervention \u2013 tend to maintain stable communication without increasing noise level very much. This is because the methods of communication between animals, typically through sound, olfactory, or visual signals, or between green plants, typically through volatile organic compounds, have hardly changed for thousands of years. Only humans are capable of advancing technologies that significantly increase confusion.<\/p>\n Limiting children\u2019s access to these technologies<\/a> means their environment becomes a lot less noisy and more calm. The same, of course, applies to adults. An outright ban on smartphones for children is impractical and\u00a0possibly unhelpful<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 but creating an environment in which parents can comfortably say \u201cno\u201d to a smartphone, or alternatively in which parents can have an open and transparent dialogue with their children on their smartphone use, might work better.<\/p>\n Dorje C. Brody<\/a>, Professor of Mathematics, University of Surrey<\/a>. He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/p>\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Teen-screen-time-1200x791.jpeg\"\/)
Information online is accompanied by a lot of irrelevant \u2018noise\u2019. (\u00a9 olly \u2013 stock.adobe.com)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754903886_445_count.gif\"\/)
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