| Abstract: |
Smartphone overuse among adolescents has moved from a peripheral parenting concern to a documented public health issue, with prevalence estimates of problematic use ranging from 10% to nearly 30% across different national samples. This review consolidates evidence from behavioral intervention studies published largely between 2015 and 2024, examining school-based digital literacy programs, cognitive-behavioral therapy adaptations, mindfulness and self-regulation training, parental mediation strategies, and app-based nudging tools. Rather than treating these as competing solutions, the paper maps where each approach succeeds and where it consistently fails. Findings suggest that single-component interventions, particularly those relying on restriction alone, produce short-lived reductions in screen time that decay within eight to twelve weeks. Multi-component programs combining cognitive-behavioral techniques with family involvement show more durable effects, though evidence quality is uneven; many trials lack long-term follow-up, use self-reported screen time as the sole outcome measure, and recruit small, non-representative samples. The review also identifies a persistent measurement problem: "addiction" itself is operationalized inconsistently across studies, complicating cross-study comparison. Synthesizing 30 sources, the paper argues for a shift toward intervention designs that treat smartphone use as embedded in adolescent social and emotional development rather than as an isolated behavior to be suppressed. Implications for school counselors, clinicians, and policymakers are discussed, alongside methodological recommendations for future randomized controlled trials in this area. |
