Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper published in June 2026 in Frontiers in Psychology used a new Device Attachment Interference Scale (DAIS) and surveyed 600 U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 recruited through Qualtrics.
- Researchers found a statistically significant correlation between teens who perceive caregivers as distracted by phones and higher scores on both anxious and avoidant measures of insecure attachment.
- The authors emphasize the study is correlational and note key limits: all measures were self-reported, the design was cross-sectional, and sample recruitment could bias results, so cause and effect are not established.
- Co-author Don Grant said parents can be influenced by platform design in the same ways companies influence young users, a point the paper raises when discussing industry-driven attention harms.
- The study echoes prior Pew data showing many teens feel ignored by parents' phones and adds to broader concerns and litigation about social platforms' effects, with authors calling for longitudinal and experimental follow-up to test causal pathways.