Behavior

In a relatively short period of time, smartphones have grown to a near-ubiquitous status. With each passing new release, smartphones are becoming more powerful and all-encompassing. Understandably, this is leading to increased user adoption and a surge in daily screen time.

Here are some highlights (2024 Statistics):

• On average, Americans spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones each day.
• People check their phones an average of 58 times each day. And almost 52% of phone checks occur during work hours.
• Worldwide statistics show that the top 5 nations in cell phone use were the Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, and Ghana, averaging just over 5 hours a day on their smartphones.
• Around 1 in 3 (36%) Americans believe they spend too much time on their smartphones each day.

There is a correlation between generations and phone screen time per day:

Gen Z - 6 hours and 5 minutes, with 56% feeling addicted Millennials - 4 hours and 36 minutes, with 48% feeling addicted Gen X - 4 hours and 9 minutes, with 44% feeling addicted Baby Boomers - 3 hours and 31 minutes, with 29% feeling addicted

One study found that, on average, children get their first phone at age 12. That means that the average American is expected to spend approximately 12 years of their life looking at their phone.

More than half of Americans believe they are too dependent on their phones (52%). As many as 3 in 5 (59%) use their phones in the bathroom, while 27% will text when at stoplights.

By 2027, there are expected to be 7.69 billion smartphone subscriptions.

New research analyzing nearly 2 billion words from websites across 20 English-speaking countries reveals that Americans lead the pack in online profanity, outswearing even the Brits and Australians by a significant margin.

The findings flip common stereotypes on their head. While we might expect foul-mouthed Aussies or pub-going Brits to claim the digital cursing crown, it’s actually Americans who dominate online vulgarity.

Researchers noted in their study that “The United States, often associated with protestant puritanism, Christian fervor, and prudishness, show the highest rates of vulgarity in online discourse, followed by Great Britain.”

Online anonymity and informal communication styles enable this linguistic freedom. Unlike face-to-face conversations constrained by social hierarchies and formal expectations, digital spaces often feel like consequence-free zones for verbal expression.

Despite common perceptions that Australians are the most profane English speakers —Americans claim the digital crown for creative cursing. Americans apparently reserve their strongest expressions for online spaces where they feel freer to let loose.

If two of the 20th century’s iconic technologies, the automobile and the television, initiated the rise of American aloneness, then screens continue to fuel and even accelerated, our national anti-social streak. Countless books, articles, and cable-news segments have warned Americans that smartphones can negatively affect mental health and may be especially harmful to adolescents. But the fretful coverage is, if anything, restrained given how greatly these devices have changed our conscious experience.

The typical person is awake for about 900 minutes a day. American kids and teenagers spend, on average, about 270 minutes on weekdays and 380 minutes on weekends gazing into their screens, according to the Digital Parenthood Initiative. By this account, screens occupy more than 30 percent of their waking life.

In today's digital age, selfies have become a global phenomenon. Millions of people, especially young adults, spend countless hours capturing and sharing images of themselves. This trend reflects a growing desire for self-expression, social validation, and personal branding. Here are the most current stats as of the end of 2024:

• 92 million selfies are taken every day.
• Individuals spend 54 hours a year (or 7 minutes a day) taking selfies.
• The average “selfie-taker” is 24 years old.
• Women take 1.5 times more selfies than men.
• A full 95% of youth have taken selfies, compared to 63% of those aged 35–54 and only 44% of people over 55.
• Roughly 33% of pictures snapped by 18 to 24-year-olds are self-portraits.
• Millennials are forecast to capture around 25,700 selfies over their lifetime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Kind of makes you think that the world was a little less narcissistic when we had to pay for film.

In what might be Ohio's most bizarre drug bust this year, law enforcement officials doing a traffic stop were surprised to discover a raccoon named Chewy sitting in the driver's seat, casually holding a meth pipe to its mouth.

Police detained motorist Victoria Vidal after a records search showed her license was suspended, and she had an active warrant for arrest. Their traffic stop uncovered a veritable drug buffet - crack cocaine, meth, and three used meth pipes - but the real star was the furry suspect. “Thankfully, Chewy the raccoon was unharmed,” police confirmed, adding they even checked if the owner had “the proper paperwork and documentation to own the raccoon.”

“While our officers are trained to expect the unexpected, finding a raccoon holding a meth pipe is a first,” a department rep quipped. Vidal faces multiple drug charges and a citation for driving with a suspended license, but Chewy walked away without so much as a warning, proving that in Ohio's criminal justice system, raccoons remain Ohio's most wanted—and least prosecuted—outlaws.

In the meantime, let’s hope that Chewy gets the help it needs – or failing that, that it finds a better human role model to emulate.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Creation; Responsibility; Stewardship - The Bible teaches that humans are given dominion over animals, but this comes with a responsibility for their well-being. This story reminds us that our actions can influence those around us, even animals who are keen observers, and they often replicate both positive and negative actions they observe in their environment.

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children in the Bonneville Salt Flats, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card.

Bob Sagers was walking around an indie music festival in Salt Lake City when a friendly stranger approached and asked for his number. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a Jesus look to you?” the man asked, according to Sagers, a 25-year-old who works as a cheesemonger at a grocery store. It wasn’t a pickup line—the man’s wife was an artist looking for religious models. “I didn’t really get that a lot,” says Sagers, who is 6-foot-5 with dirty-blonde, shoulder-length hair and a beard he says gives Irish and Scandinavian vibes. “I make for a pretty tall Jesus.”

And so it was that Sagers began a side hustle as a savior. Since being recruited about four years ago, Sagers has posed as Jesus nearly a dozen times. Others have done so far more often, charging about $100 to $200 an hour to pose with children, families, and couples at various locations in the Beehive state.

For the newly sought-after models, the job can be freighted with meaning and responsibility. Look-alikes find that people expect them to embody Jesus in more ways than the hair and beard. Some models said they feel like a celebrity when they don the robe—and get treated like one too. (One felt compelled to remind an onlooker he wasn’t the real Jesus.) Others said they’ve had their own semireligious experiences on the job.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every follower of Jesus may not look like Jesus, but we are called to act like Jesus!

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card. Some charge between $100 to $200 an hour to pose with children, families, and couples at various locations.

For the sought-after models, the job can be freighted with meaning and responsibility. Lookalikes find that people expect them to embody Jesus in more ways than the hair and beard. Jai Knighton has posed as Jesus a number of times. He says, “portraying Jesus can be tricky.” One person who hired him wanted him to be “the most Christlike person you can be, or people will be able to tell through the photos that it’s not real.” Others were more relaxed, asking him to smile and enjoy himself.

Knighton said he tried to portray Jesus in a way that’s similar to how he is depicted in “The Chosen.” Knighton said, “Stoic Jesus is intimidating. A Jesus who smiles and pats you on the back is much more relatable.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians should keep in mind that we represent Christ to those around us. What image of Jesus are you presenting?

Changes in personality following a heart transplant have been noted pretty much ever since transplants began. In one case, a person who hated classical music developed a passion for the genre after receiving a musician’s heart. The recipient later died holding a violin case.

In another case, a 45-year-old man remarked how, since receiving the heart of a 17-year-old boy, he loves to put on headphones and listen to loud music — something he had never done before the transplant.

What might explain this? One suggestion could be that this is a placebo effect where the overwhelming joy of receiving a new lease on life gives the person a sunnier disposition. However, there is some evidence to suggest that these personality changes aren’t all psychological. Biology may play a role, too.

The heart transplant seems to be most commonly associated with personality changes. The chambers release peptide hormones which help regulate the balance of fluid in the body by affecting the kidneys. They also play a role in electrolyte balance and inhibiting the activity of the part of our nervous system responsible for the fight-or-flight response. The cells in charge of this are in the hypothalamus — a part of the brain that plays a role in everything from homeostasis (balancing biological systems) to mood.

So, the donor organ, which may have a different base level of hormones and peptide production from the original organ, could change the recipient’s mood and personality through the substances it releases.

We know that cells from the donor are found circulating in the recipient’s body, and donor DNA is seen in the recipient’s body two years after the transplant. This again poses the question of where the DNA goes and what actions it may have.

Whichever mechanism, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible, this area of research warrants further investigation so that recipients can understand the physical and psychological changes that could occur following surgery.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This phenomenon is still unproven medically, but what is certain is that before salvation each of us had a desperately sick heart (Jer. 17:9). But by the process of regeneration, God implanted a new heart (Ezek. 36:26, Ezek. 11:19; Psa. 51:10-12; 2 Cor 5:17). This gradually and radically changes a believer’s personality to reflect the Christlike qualities of a new nature (Eph. 4:22-24). With a new heart, a Christian will begin to show unconditional love, kindness, and forgiveness. They become less focused on themselves and exhibit simple acts of servanthood toward others.

In a New York Times piece “Gen Z Has Regrets,” Jonathan Haidt and co-writer Will Johnson ask if young people wish social media had never existed. Between a third and a half say they do!

Nearly all American teenagers use social media regularly, and they spend an average of nearly five hours a day just on these platforms. 52 percent say social media has benefited their lives, and 29 percent say it has hurt them personally. We have found this pattern…in a wide array of surveys.

We’re not just talking about sad feelings from FOMO or social comparison. We’re talking about a range of documented risks that affect heavy users, including sleep deprivation, body image distortion, depression, anxiety, exposure to content promoting suicide and eating disorders, sexual predation and sextortion, and “problematic use,” which is the term used to describe compulsive overuse that interferes with success in other areas of life.

If any other consumer product was causing serious harm to more than one out of every 10 of its young users, there would be a tidal wave of state and federal legislation to ban or regulate it. In 2020 Sarah Condon said, “We are in the 1920s of cigarettes when it comes to social media.” In 2024, the prognosis seems clear!

Gen Z does not heavily regret the basic communication, storytelling, and information-seeking functions of the internet. If smartphones merely let people text each other, watch movies and search for helpful information, or interesting videos (without algorithms intended to hook users), there would be far less regret and resentment.

Respondents wished these products had never been invented:

Instagram (34 percent)

Facebook (37 percent)

Snapchat (43 percent)

TikTok (47 percent)

X/Twitter (50 percent)

When children are exposed to violence on TV and in video games, studies show they tend to become more aggressive themselves. But a study reveals that even just exposure to swear words in media may lead children to become more physically aggressive as well.

In a study involving middle-schoolers in Missouri, researchers asked the students about their exposure to profanity in the media — in particular on television and in video games — as well as their attitudes about swear words and their tendencies toward aggressive behavior. The scientists measured both physical aggression (by asking students whether they hit, kicked, or punched others) and relational aggression (by asking them whether they gossiped about others to damage their reputations).

The researchers calculated that exposure to profanity had about the same relationship to aggressive behavior as exposure to violence on TV or in video games. In addition, they found that the more children were exposed to profanity, they more likely they were to use swear words themselves, and those who used profanity were more likely to become aggressive toward others. Study leader Sarah Coyne said:

From using profanity to aggressive behavior, it was a pretty strong correlation. And these are not even the worst [profane] words that kids are exposed to, since there are seven dirty words that you’re not allowed to say on TV. So, we’re seeing that even exposure to lower forms of profanity are having an effect on behavior.

While bullying behavior was not specifically addressed in the study, children who are more aggressive are known to be more likely to bully. So, controlling youngsters’ exposure to profanity may be one way to stem the tide of bullying among teens.

In a 2022 behavioral study, researchers explored the connection between anger and moral courage. While participants were supposedly waiting for the study to start, they overheard two experimenters plan, and then execute, the embezzlement of money from the project fund. (The embezzlement was staged.) The participants had various opportunities to intervene, including directly confronting the experimenters, involving a fellow participant, or reporting to a superior.

Depending on your perspective of the events of the last few years, you may or may not be surprised to learn that only 27% of participants intervened. (Other experiments confirm the natural human inclination towards passivity). Interestingly, researchers found that the more an individual reported feeling angry, the more likely they were to intervene, showing that anger can serve as an important catalyst for moral courage.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Often the anger of man does not achieve God’s purposes, but there is a place for “righteous anger” at what is wrong and evil.

Many zoos are facing a new dilemma: gorillas and screen time. Great apes have become interested in watching videos of themselves on the phones of visitors.

For instance, in San Diego, four hulking male gorillas roamed their zoo enclosure, sitting pensively on rocks overlooking a waterfall and climbing a wooden structure. Suddenly, an 18-year-old western lowland gorilla named Ekuba bounded up to the glass. The 380-pound animal looked expectantly at a man wearing a shirt bearing the gorilla’s image as he pulled out his phone. Ekuba stood on all fours and began watching videos—of himself and other gorillas.

Ekuba isn’t the only gorilla enthralled with devices. Across North America, zoos have grappled with, and sometimes embraced, primates taking an interest in screen time. In Louisville, Ky., a 27-year-old gorilla named Jelani has been enamored with phones for years, flicking his finger or tapping the glass when he’s ready for a visitor to swipe to the next shot. At the Toronto Zoo, keepers have hung signs to dissuade showing screens to gorillas, citing disruption to their family dynamic.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Creation; Responsibility; Stewardship - The Bible teaches that humans are given dominion over animals, but this comes with a responsibility for their well-being. This story can serve as an example of the proverb “Monkey see, monkey do" which reminds us that our actions can influence those around us, even animals who are keen observers, and they often replicate both positive and negative actions they observe in their environment.

Parents are bombarded with a dizzying list of orders when it comes to screen time and young children: No screens for babies under 18 months. Limit screens to one hour for children under 5. Only “high-quality” programming. No fast-paced apps. Don’t use screens to calm a fussy child. “Co-view” with your kid to interact while watching.

The stakes are high. Every few months it seems, a distressing study comes out linking screen time with a growing list of concerns for young children: Obesity. Behavioral problems. Sleep issues. Speech and developmental delays.

Maya Valree, the mother of a three-year-old girl in Los Angeles, understands the risks and constantly worries about them. But limiting her daughter’s screen time to one hour feels impossible as she juggles life as a working parent, she said.

Over the last few years, her child’s screen time has ranged up to two to three hours a day, more than double the limit recommended by pediatricians. Valree puts on educational programming whenever possible, but it doesn’t capture her child’s attention as well as her favorites, Meekah and The Powerpuff Girls.

“Screen time is in the top three or five things to feel guilty about as a mom,” she said. “I’ve used it to pacify my daughter while cooking or working or catching up on anything personal or professional.”

Too much screen time harms children, experts agree. So why do parents ignore them? Parents need to have some type of distraction for their kids, and “screens tend to be the easiest option, the lowest hanging fruit,” said pediatrician Whitney Casares. “I hear more people saying, ‘I know screen time is bad, I wish we had less of it in our family, but I feel helpless to change it.’”

The most recent data available comes from a national survey of nearly 1,500 families with children ages eight and younger conducted in 2020. The survey found that few families were not coming anywhere close to pediatricians’ recommended limits.

• Children under two watch an average of 49 minutes of digital media a day, while the guidelines recommend avoiding screens for children under two.

• Children ages two to four watch an average of two-and-a-half hours a day, more than twice the limit recommended.

• Children five to eight watch just over three hours a day. The American Academy of Pediatricians does not provide strict time limits for school-age children but advises parents to make sure screen time does not displace other activities.

In 1979 Dr. Ellen Langer, a Psychology Professor at Harvard, designed a weeklong experiment for a group of 75-year-old men. The men knew very little about the nature of the experiment, except that they would be gone for a week. When the men arrived, they were told that for the coming week they were to pretend it was 1959 (not 1979) the time when these 75-year-old men were only 55-years-old. They were told to dress and act like they did at that time. They were given ID badges with pictures of themselves in their mid-50s.

Over the course of that week, they were instructed to talk about President Eisenhower (as though he were still President) and other events in their lives that had happened at that time. They were to talk about their old jobs like they were working in them now, and not as if they had retired from them. Copies of LIFE magazine and the Saturday Evening Post from 1959 were displayed on coffee tables. Everything was designed to make them see through the lens of their 55-year-old selves.

Before this retreat the men were tested on every aspect of life that we assume deteriorates with age. By the end of the retreat most of the men had improved in every one of these categories. For example, they were significantly more flexible, had better posture, and even much improved hand strength. Their average eyesight improved by almost 10%, as did their performance on tests of memory. In more than half the men intelligence increased as well. Their physical appearance changed. Random people who did not know anything about the experiment were shown pictures of the men before and after the experiment and asked to guess their age. Based on these objective ratings the men were described as looking on average three years younger than when they arrived.

Professor Langer demonstrated that even when objectively nothing has changed about us, simply having a different mindset can powerfully shape our reality.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In Ephesians 4:24-5:2, the Apostle Paul observed that when a person adopts a new mindset, not because they have been tricked into a different way of thinking because of their surroundings but, based on the reality of being made new creations, they can experience a profound transformation.

Here's the conclusion from a study published in the journal Aggressive Behavior: Watching TV programs about mean people can make you a mean person. The study focused on 250 college women who viewed clips depicting different forms of aggression, from violent fighting to gossiping and excluding others.

But here's the scary part to the study:

Aggressive reactions are more automatic and less conscious than most people assume. ... That means nobody deliberately decides to imitate a Real Housewife; the connection is more subtle and unintentional. … One of the authors points out that even TV shows depicting friends putting each other down in the name of a joke has its effects, too.

Watching a clip of two girls fighting over a boyfriend causes the same kind of reaction that watching a murderous scene would. This leads to a higher chance of engaging in aggressive behavior because the stimuli “primes” your brain for aggression.

So, anyone know of a show where everyone treats each other respectfully, don’t make jokes at someone’s expense, and no one secretly sabotages anyone?

A study of YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook revealed that American Teens—by a large margin—use YouTube (71%) more than TikTok (58%). But they're more likely to scroll through the TikTok app "almost constantly," according to Pew Research Center polling.

The stat points to how addictive and unhealthy TikTok's endless feed of videos can be for teens.

A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that new TikTok accounts were shown self-harm and eating disorder content within minutes of scrolling.

• Suicide-related videos popped up within 2.6 minutes.
• Eating disorder content popped up in 8 minutes.

Because of this, there's suddenly a roaring national debate over fears about teens' privacy, their data security—and all the misinformation going straight to their phones. Citing national security concerns, Congress is pushing to force the platform's Chinese parent company to sell TikTok or face a ban.

Psychologist Jean Twenge says. "It's of course possible that people will replace TikTok time with YouTube time or Instagram time. However, TikTok's algorithm is particularly effective at getting you to spend more time on it."

An investigation by the French newspaper Le Monde revealed a potential security threat for several world leaders. The confidential movements of France’s president Macron, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and former president Trump -- even after two assassination attempts on Trump – were easily tracked online through a fitness app used by their bodyguards.

The security agents were found using the Strava app, which is primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts. The data it collects can also be used to track users' locations.

The newspaper identified a total of 44 U.S., French, and Russian security agents, all responsible for presidential security, who had public Strava accounts. Their movements, including professional trips, were therefore communicated online.

The U.S. Secret Service said in a statement to Le Monde that while staff are not allowed to use personal electronic devices while on duty, “we do not prohibit an employee’s personal use of social media off-duty.” However, they added that “affected personnel have been notified" and that they "will review this information to determine if any additional training or guidance is required.”

These potential security breaches illustrate the risks associated with tech companies and consumer data. "Companies love our data, and we love the product, so we give away the data for free," said Ibrahim Baggili, professor of cybersecurity at Louisiana State University. "The government really needs to start cracking down on how data can be used and how long it can be retained."

Possible Preaching Angle:

God gives us the freedom to decide how to live, but we must consider how our choices affect others.

An article on Vice starts with an intriguing question:

You know the feeling. A sort of internal itch … Wouldn't it be nice to see what my friends are up to? But, no, you're working. You need to finish your article or file a report or get to your appointment on time. But you can just check Facebook quickly, can't you? And then you're five minutes late to your appointment, again.

Is Facebook really addictive? Well, that all depends, but based on this study from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, it's sure hard to resist that urge to go and look at Facebook. "Surprisingly" the article concluded, "the data suggests that the checking of social media accounts ranks higher than having a smoke or a drink as a 'self-controlled failure.'"

While this conclusion may seem surprising, it really isn't. Part of why people give in to compulsions is because they determine that the consequences aren't great enough for them to resist. Behaviors like smoking and drinking have a much higher "cost" than quickly checking a social media account.

Yet, spending excessive time on Facebook does cost something. It costs time, and when people check Facebook twenty times per day, that time adds up. Maybe it’s time to start studying the real costs associated with social media addiction.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Since Facebook use is beginning to decline among young people, for this illustration you could include or substitute other popular social media sites such as: Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, WeChat, Messenger, or Telegram. You can find a list of the top 35 social media platforms for 2024 here.

In his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt tells the story of what happened to Gen Z (born 1995). They became “the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable and . . . unsuitable for children and adolescents.”

In 2011, 23% of teens had a smartphone. By 2016, 79% of teens owned a smartphone, as did 28% of children eight to 12. Soon teens were reporting they spent an average of almost seven hours a day on screens. “One out of every four teens said that they were online ‘almost constantly,’” Mr. Haidt writes.

Girls moved their social lives onto social media. Boys burrowed into immersive video games, Reddit, YouTube, and pornography.

Suddenly children “spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching, or even making eye contact with their friends and families.” They withdrew from “embodied social behaviors” essential for successful human development. It left them not noticing the world.

Signs of a mental-health crisis quickly emerged. Rates of mental illness among the young went up dramatically in many Western countries between 2010 and 2015. Between 2010 and 2024 major depression among teens went up 145% among girls, 161% among boys. There was a rise in disorders related to anxiety as well. Mr. Haidt looked at changes that weren’t self-reported—studies charting emergency psychiatric care and admissions. They too were up. “The rate of self-harm for . . . young adolescent girls nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020.”

For decades, a social psychologist named John Bargh has conducted studies on the way words affect behavior. In one such study, undergraduate students were given a scrambled-sentence test. One version of the test was sprinkled with rude words like “disturb,” “bother,” and “intrude.” Another version was sprinkled with polite words like “respect,” “considerate,” and “yield.” The subjects thought they were taking tests measuring lan­guage ability, but they were actually being subconsciously primed by those words.

Priming is a psychological phenomenon related to stimulus and response, and words are the lead actors. The word “nurse” is recognized more quickly if it’s preceded by the word “doctor.” The same goes for “dog” and “wolf.” Why? These words are semantic primes that cause you to think in categories. If I say Empire State Building, it puts you in a New York state of mind. In the same sense, the word “please” is a politeness prime.

After taking the five-minute scrambled-sentence test, stu­dents were supposed to walk down the hall and talk to the person running the experiment about their next assignment. However, an actor was strategically engaged in conversation with the researcher when the students arrived. The goal? Psychologist Bargh wanted to see whether the subjects who were primed with polite words would wait longer before interrupting than those who were primed with rude words.

The result? Sixty-five percent of the group primed with rude words interrupted the conversation. Those primed with polite words? Eighty-two percent of them never interrupted at all. If the test hadn't timed out at ten minutes, who knows how long they would have waited?

Possible Preaching Angle:

A few polite words. What difference do they make? In quantitative terms, they can make a 47% difference. Don’t underestimate the power of polite words.