21% of young people spend six hours or more on their phone daily

A fifth of 16 to 21-year-olds spend six hours or more on their smartphone every day, a new study has found.

25% of young people indicated they spend four hours a day on their phone, while just 3% spend an hour or less.

The research was carried out as part of the Young Social Innovators (YSI)/Amárach "Gen Z Index".

A third of young people surveyed admitted that posts of unrealistic beauty make their lives more difficult.

The majority of young people (93%) feel that the life of a teenager is more difficult than it was for their parents.

Pressure to achieve good exam grades, go to college and get a good job were cited as the areas where life has become most difficult.

A third of respondents indicated that ‘unrealistic beauty and life satisfaction’ perpetuated by social media made life more difficult for today’s teenagers.

28% felt that the constant peer pressure and scrutiny from social media also contributed to making life more difficult.

However, 60% of those surveyed said that social media has positively impacted their lives, with 67% of males agreeing to this statement and 58% of females.

CEO of Young Social Innovators, Rachel Collier, said: “There has been a lot of discussion in the media in recent weeks about keeping young people occupied during the summer months and, in particular, how to get them away from screens.

"From this research, we can see how strongly embedded smartphones are in the day-to-day lives of Generation Z.

For all of us involved in guiding young people from teens to adulthood, the issue of smartphone usage is something that we need to be aware of. These devices are part of the life and culture of Generation Z: they are not going away.

“We need to focus on getting the balance right between smartphone usage and real-life experiences, without trying to roll-back on something that is firmly part of contemporary youth culture," she said.