Then I came across a poll from the Pew Research Center, and things began to fall into place. The poll graphed smartphone ownership in the U.S., which started in 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone and crossed 50% at the end of 2012 into the beginning of 2013. This was also around the time that social media use among teens went from optional to virtually mandatory—in 2009, only about half of teens used social media every day, but by 2012, 3 out of 4 did (in the large Monitoring the Future study). Among all the possibilities, the rise of these new technologies seemed the most likely culprit
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