🧠 “Mental Health” vs “Mind Health” vs “Wellbeing” 🧘
Hello everyone! It’s Frankie (they/she), back with another post for FlippGen. ✌️I enjoyed writing and sharing my first post, so when the wonderful creators of FlippGen asked if a Digital Rebel was interested in reading a recently published study and reflecting on how it relates to our narrative and campaign, I was more than happy to do so.
The first part of this article will focus on understanding the study and its findings. What can we learn about the effects of early smartphone ownership? As FlippGen has an overarching focus on “digital wellbeing”, the second part of this article will focus on explaining what we mean by wellbeing, referencing this research. This may be useful for those of you who have recently come across us. Let’s get into it! 📝
Part 1: The Study
📚Breaking Down the Study
Don’t worry … I know reading academic journal articles can be a daunting task, so I’ve gone ahead and read it for you. You’re welcome! ☺️
In summary, more and more children and teenagers are using smartphones and social media worldwide, and the age we’re getting access to devices is getting younger. Therefore, the authors of this study were interested in understanding how growing up in digital environments can influence our development, functioning and capabilities over time. Using data from the Global Mind Project, they investigated the widespread impacts that childhood smartphone ownership has on mind health and wellbeing as you grow older (don’t worry about these terms for now … we’ll discuss them later).
🔑 Here are some key takeaways of their analysis…
1️⃣Children who own a smartphone before the age of 13 are more likely to have ‘poorer mind health outcomes in adulthood’. These individuals might feel disconnected from the real world, struggle to regulate their emotions, have lower self-worth and potentially experience suicidal thoughts.
2️⃣Children who own a smartphone before the age of 13 seem to have worse mind health and wellbeing as they grow up. Adding on to this, the earlier a child owns a phone - at age 5 instead of age 13, for example - the more likely they are to struggle with their mind health and wellbeing later on.
3️⃣Other than the age of first ownership, the authors suggest that the correlation between childhood smartphone usage and poorer mind health and wellbeing in young adulthood is sustained by several factors, including: ‘social media access, cyberbullying, disrupted sleep and poor family relationships’.
So, not only does this article highlight the negative effects of smartphone usage from a young age, but it also discusses risk factors and mediating factors involved in smartphone ownership that contribute to poorer outcomes. This table makes this easier to understand:
Negative effects → Poorer mind health outcomes in young adulthood
Risk factors → The younger a child owns a smartphone, the worse the outcomes
Mediating factors → Social media use, cyberbullying, disrupted sleep, poor family relationships
❓But why are these findings important to FlippGen?
Over at FlippGen, these findings are deemed interesting and worth discussing with you as they support our cause! 🥳 Some people argue against more stringent regulation of smartphones and social media, claiming that there is no scientific proof of the causation between their use and a decline in young people’s mental health. However, the findings presented in this study clearly support the case for a link between smartphones and social media and the quality of your mind health and wellbeing in both adolescence and young adulthood.
🐾What steps can we take?
In today’s society, owning a smartphone seems inevitable. However, these research findings have given us an idea about how to practically respond to risks growing up in the digital age comes with.
Young children should be encouraged to hold off on having a smartphone for as long as possible. It is clear that the earlier you have access to a phone and the digital world, the more risk there is to your wellbeing later in life. It is important to highlight these risks to children, teenagers and adults.
Once children begin to use smartphones and have access to the digital world, I believe it is important for them to be supported in maintaining digital wellbeing. Age-appropriate policies and parental guidance can be introduced once individuals have access to phones. Furthermore, FlippGen’s digital toolkit empowers young people to learn healthy habits and navigate the internet more safely. Young people will have access to the internet whether we like it or not … we can just hope to make this access as healthy as possible!
Part 2: Mental Health, Mind Health and Wellbeing
🤔What is the difference between mental health, mind health and wellbeing?
The terms mental health, mind health and wellbeing have been discussed a lot when looking at the study … but what do they actually mean? The three are closely connected and often used interchangeably. However, they do have separate meanings. This can be a little bit confusing, so let’s break down each term more clearly!
🧠Mental Health
Mental health has a focus on emotional and psychological wellbeing. Looking at how you feel, cope with stress, relate to others, and manage daily life can help you treat and even prevent mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental health is “a state of well-being in which every individual realises their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to contribute to their community”.
🌈Mind Health
On the other hand, mind health focuses more on cognitive performance compared to emotional and psychological states. The Global Mind Project, which provided the data analysed in this paper, defines mind health as not just mental health, but the full spectrum of cognitive, emotional, and social functioning that supports a young person’s development into adulthood. Using the MHQ (Mental Health Quotient) to measure challenges and positive traits, the findings of the study found that early smartphone ownership impacts this spectrum as follows:
Cognitive abilities → poor sleep affects memory and focus
Emotional regulation → linked to lower self-worth and suicidal thoughts
Social connection → weaker family bonds and disconnection from the real world
🧘Wellbeing
Wellbeing is the broadest of the three concepts. While mental health and mind health focus more on individual states, wellbeing is about the overall quality of life - how we feel, function, and flourish within our environment.
The WHO defines wellbeing as “a positive state experienced by individuals and societies.” This state is influenced by multiple dimensions:
Physical wellbeing → good sleep, nutrition, exercise, and freedom from illness.
Mental & emotional wellbeing → resilience, self-esteem, and the ability to manage emotions.
Social wellbeing → strong, positive relationships and a sense of belonging.
Economic & environmental wellbeing → feeling secure, safe, and supported by the spaces and systems around us.
When we talk about digital wellbeing at FlippGen, we mean the impact technology has across all of these areas. For example:
Poor sleep due to late-night scrolling harms physical wellbeing.
Cyberbullying damages emotional wellbeing.
Replacing face-to-face connections with constant online interactions weakens social wellbeing.
Even access to safe, age-appropriate online spaces links to environmental wellbeing in a digital sense.
Digital wellbeing is not just about “screen time.” It’s about balance, boundaries, and building a relationship with technology that supports, rather than undermines, our ability to thrive.
Final thoughts …
After unpacking this study, one thing is clear: early smartphone ownership can have lasting ripple effects across almost every part of a young person’s life.
Socially, early access can weaken family relationships and reduce our ability to form meaningful connections offline, while increasing exposure to cyberbullying.
Emotionally, it raises the risk of low self-worth, difficulty regulating feelings, and even suicidal thoughts.
Cognitively, disrupted sleep and constant digital stimulation impair focus, learning, and memory.
Physically, poor habits formed around device use, such as late-night scrolling, contribute to fatigue and stress.
This doesn’t mean smartphones are “bad” in themselves. They can be great tools for creativity, community, and education. The problem is how early and how uncritically they’re introduced into children’s lives.
For me, this highlights why FlippGen’s mission matters so much. We aren’t just talking about screens—we’re talking about the future of our generation’s wellbeing. By sparking honest conversations, providing resources, and challenging tech culture, we can shift the narrative from “digital dependence” to “digital balance.”
💡 Takeaway for you: Think about your own digital life. Do your habits support your wellbeing across physical, mental, social, and emotional dimensions, or do they take away from it? Small changes, like better sleep hygiene, digital breaks, or conscious use of social media, can make a real difference.
At the end of the day, wellbeing is not about perfection. It’s about noticing when tech takes more than it gives, then reclaiming control. That’s the heart of digital rebellion.
