I used to remember all my friend’s phone numbers. Indeed, there was a time when my working memory served a practical utility. I could pick up the phone and dial friends and family at will, no device required, not even a note book. Today, with a pocket-sized super-computer in my hands, I do not need to remember anything. The smartphone has rendered memory all but obsolete. Yet those who retain the capacity for memorization can seem super-human. They recite poems, passages from Shakespeare, or notable speeches from renowned historical figures. Even to remember a friend’s birthday without a reminder from Facebook seems a rare feat.
The smartphone has overtaken the clumsy, fumbling tasks that we used to perform. However, reliance on our devices has also atrophied our cognitive abilities. As smartphones have displaced our mental tasks, leaving us with a reduced cognitive acuity, they have also become a vortex that subsumes our attention and totalizes our awareness. Everyday, I see client who tell me about their reliance on the screen. Most are embarrassed to admit their habits, but they are not in denial about their dependency. It is not uncommon for people to reach for the phone first-thing in the morning. Before their feet land on the floor, their fingers are scroll through the social media feeds, their eyes sopping up the latest tweets and feeds. Many clients report fixation on short-form videos consisting of frivolous content. Cute pet videos offer delightful amusement, but hours of this content can sap vitality from the mind. Clients tell me that they emerge from this stultifying fog feeling diminished and feeble. Moreover, they report powerlessness in the face of their habits; they know that the phone offers little in edifying substance, but their thumbs keep scrolling. This is a behaviour that resembles, if not constitutes, an addiction.
A growing body of research indicates that the cumulative effects of excessive screen time (over 3 hours of use each day, including mobile phones, computers, laptops, tablets, video games, and television) are harmful to our wellbeing. For teenagers, use of social media is linked to adverse mental-health problems. What has been detrimental for teens is far from innocuous for adults. In addition to anxiety and depression, excessive screen time is associated with poor sleep, poor focus, and decreased overall wellness in adults. The indirect effects of excessive screen time include neck and back pain, eye strain, and a variety of health risks related to a sedentary lifestyle. In the short and medium term, excessive screen time is correlated with poor psychological health in children and adolescents. Over the long term, excessive screen time decreases grey-matter in the brain and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Most of us do not require much persuasion. We feel better walking in the forest, out running by the water, spending time with friends. My best days include time for meditation, playing guitar, hanging out with my wife and my dog. The best that life has to offer is not delivered through a screen. Intuitively, most of us agree with Henry David Thoreau when he writes that “the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with trivialities.” More importantly, we squander the precious essences of life – applying ourselves to challenges, learning a new skill, expanding our horizons through new experiences, enjoying the company of friends – when we squander our time and attention on the screen.
For those looking to unshackle themselves from the captivity of the screen, here are a few practical suggestions.
Turn off Notifications: The little red flags that appear on our apps indicate new feeds and posts. Before we even click on the app, our dopamine circuits are already active in anticipation of novelty. Most smartphones feature the option of turning off notifications. This creates a quieter interface, which allows the brain to reset to calmer baseline, less fixated on the latest feeds and messages.
Turn on Screen Time Monitoring: Most phones offer a weekly report of screen-use, including how much time we spend on each app. By tracking screen-time, we can visualize our habits and make incremental goals to reduce our use.
Find an accountability partner: Most of us cannot sustain a resolution very long on our own. We need others to encourage us along the way. Find a friend who is also interested in curbing their screen time. Arrange to meet on a regular basis and check on each other’s progress. This does not need to be a dour, stress-filled affair, where we dread the accusing glare of a judgemental peer. Rather, it can be a light-hearted exchange with a trusted friend who shares a similar aim.
Schedule your Screen Time: Intentionally set aside time to scroll your phone, and try to limit your screen time to this allotted duration. This can seem counterintuitive, but by consciously setting aside time to scroll the phone, we are less likely to scroll mindlessly, allowing the phone to encroach on our day. Most people pull out their phone when they encounter boredom, while travelling on the bus, waiting in line at the grocery store. Those minutes add up. By setting aside time for the screen, we are excluding the screen from other moments in our lives.
Leave the phone somewhere far from the bed: Similar to oral hygiene that keeps our teeth healthy, sleep hygiene consists of good habits that promote restful, restorative sleep. Screen time before bed bombards the brain with stimuli and can impede our ability to fall asleep. Reaching for the phone first thing in the morning can disturb the transition between sleep and wakefulness, leading to feelings of lassitude. Research indicates that leaving our smartphones outside the bedroom helps promote better sleep.
Audit the list of who you follow on Social Media: Imagine that your mind is an art gallery. What you expose yourself to throughout a day becomes paintings on the wall, sculptures on display. The contents of the gallery is a statement of our inner space. The contents that occupy our attention – inflammatory rhetoric, boastful exhibitions of wealth, diatribes that stoke fear and suspicion – furnish our interiority. Continuous stimuli that has no order or coherence creates disorder within our minds. The remedy to this chaos lies in auditing our social media feeds. Follow those whose contents contribute to how you want to live your life, unfollow those whose contents tend to do otherwise. By doing this, we can become more intentional about what we expose ourselves to, and by extension, we shape the forces that influence our mental wellbeing.
Substitute with Real-World Activities – Reducing screen time, resisting the pull of social media can seem like a form of self-denial. Indeed, we resolve to say “no” to ourselves in the interest of a healthier self, a fuller life. If abstaining from the phone feels too restrictive, we are prone to surrender our efforts sooner rather than later. Replace screen time with real activities, such as a leisurely walk, physical exercise, creating art or making music, or a moment of mindfulness practice. By choosing something positive, we remind ourselves (and our brains) that we are not choosing self-deprivation, but rather a healthier way of life.
Wear a Watch – Many people will pick up the phone just to check the time; with a phone in hand, it’s a seamless transition into apps and games. Every time we pick up our phones, we are reinforcing a pattern of activation in our brains. By reducing the frequency of our reaching for our phones, we soften our habits and urges, allowing our brain to develop new inclinations. If telling time through a watch can reduce the number of times we pick up the phone, we are already on the way to changing our habits.
Go for a walk. . . but leave your phone at home – Try this as an experiment and watch your impulses and discomfort. Most of us feel bound to our phones; fear of missing out keeps us riveted to the screen; the thrill of online games keep us craving for entertainment and amusement. However, by leaving the phone at home, we experience what countless others in previous generations have known to be true: that it’s possible to be happy and content without a phone. By going for a walk without a phone, we become better acquainted with our impulses (the desire to check messages, the urge to take a gander at the latest news), while opening ourselves to the marvels that lurk in plain sight – the colour of the sky, the smell of the air, the sounds that fill our surroundings. We can learn that despite the protestation of our habitual cravings, we will not die if we do not hold a phone in our hands.
Take a Tech Vacation – We all need vacations from work, which allow us to rest and restore ourselves. No one can realistically function optimally when work is interminable. Similarly, we need time for our minds to rest, for our attention to reset. By putting down the screen, unplugging from our devices, we enter a richer, saner space where silence nurtures our imagination and creativity. This respite from technology can coincide with an actual vacation, where we travel somewhere to find respite from the routines of daily life. If that is not feasible, Shlain and Goldberg’s idea of a Technology Shabbat, a day of rest from screens, might be more manageable. There is no hard prescription for the duration of abstinence. Every hour without the distraction of screens is a vote for the reclamation of attention.
These tips provide a starting point for those who wish to curb their reliance on their phones. Inevitably, the mind inured to stimulation will protest: “this is boring,” or “I need to stay informed on the latest international news.” Rather than give in to the urges, we can look at these impulses as the door to a different mentality, an alternate inner world. The urges themselves cannot do us harm. Nobody dies when I resist the urge to check Instagram. There is no emergency here. Boredom cannot kill me. By staying calm, reminding myself to ride the cravings, I am ushering myself into a different comportment, and saner inner landscape.