A series of studies by U.S. economists is pointing to smartphones as a primary cause of the global decline in birth rates. The analysis suggests that as young people spend more time on smartphones, face-to-face communication has decreased, resulting in lower fertility.
On Tuesday, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported that "the emergence of smartphones has had a direct impact on low birth rates among young people," citing a paper published with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) by a research team led by Professor Caitlin Myers of the economics department at Middlebury College in the United States.
Professor Myers's team compared and analyzed the spread of the iPhone, the smartphone launched in 2007, and changes in birth rates. The analysis found that iPhone use reduced birth rates by 4.5 to 8.0 percent among those aged 15 to 19, and by 3.2 to 6.6 percent among those aged 20 to 24.
According to the paper, a significant portion of the decline in the total fertility rate among women aged 15 to 44 was attributable to the spread of smartphones. This is because face-to-face meetings decreased as digital interaction through smartphones increased. "Since smartphones affect interaction between people and brain development, their impact will grow even larger in the future," Professor Myers forecast.
A research team at the University of Cincinnati in the United States also analyzed data from 128 countries and published findings that teen birth rates plunged with the spread of smartphones, while the rate of those ending their own lives through extreme choices rose sharply. In the United States, birth rates fell 71 percent among those aged 15 to 19 and 43 percent among those aged 20 to 24 from 2007 to 2024.
In addition, the average daily face-to-face communication time among young Americans dropped significantly from 68 minutes in 2003 to 38 minutes in 2019. In contrast, screen time on smartphones and other devices surged from 22 minutes to 96 minutes. The research team noted that smartphones have deepened isolation among young people and fundamentally changed the way they form relationships.
However, not all experts view smartphones as the key cause of low birth rates. Some researchers offered the analysis that "the decline in the U.S. birth rate is a phenomenon that has continued for a long time, even before the emergence of smartphones," and that "various social and economic factors, including rising housing costs, the burden of childcare expenses, changes in the labor market, and advances in contraceptive technology, have combined to play a role."
