To say we're on our phones a lot nowadays might be a bit of understatement. They've become more like appendages in the world of 2024, glued to us in any and every context that allow for them. We grab them while we're waiting in line, walking down the street, at work, at home, at mealtime, at the gym, in the passenger seat... in the driver's seat. Phone addiction is decidedly on the rise; many people report feeling anxious or uncomfortable without them.
What does this translates to statistically? The average American spends 4.5 hours per day on their phone and this is considerably higher for some demographics (younger people and women particularly log the most hours). This means at least 25% of our waking hours on Earth are spent staring at a cell phone screen. Let that sink in. If you're ever in doubt or denial about this, try checking your screen time stats to see where you actually stand with it.
And if you didn't know it already, this little habit of ours is not a good one. When we look at the effects our phones are having on us an inconvenient truth emerges--they're taking a big toll on our health and well-being. The following are all documented effects of frequent cell phone use: disrupted sleep patterns, deregulated hormones, skeletal misalignment, decreased activity and exercise, increased levels of stress and depression. Every item on this list is either a major disfunction in and of itself or a precursor to serious disease.
The idea that your cell phone could be so bad for you is a tough pill to swallow. I mean it's just an electronic polygon and it doesn't exactly snarl with ferocity right? But the reality of it is right there in front of us; more and more data emerges each year as phones become increasingly entrenched into human behavior. I think in ten or twenty years the cell phone could very well wind up being the new cigarette, the habit we look back on and say “How could we not have known that was so bad for us?” So let’s piece this thing apart and see what exactly these little devices are doing to our bodies and brains.
The Four Big Symptoms of Screen Time
Our phone addiction runs deep. It's creating a profound inability to exist in our own space and be present with people around us, to observe our environment, to be alone or bored for more than 30 seconds. Disconnection and distraction are becoming new baselines for human behavior. But for the sake of this article I'm going to stay away from the existential stuff and go straight for screen time symptoms that:
have a clear, direct effect on physical and/or mental health
have been documented and validated by scientific study
I. POSTURAL PROBLEMS
I think we all know the cell phone zombie posture: head hanging down, shoulders hunched, brows furrowed, eyes cast downwards towards the screen. It calls to mind a neanderthal staring at a rock. And I don't think you need a chiropractor to tell you that it's not a good idea to spend up to a quarter of your waking life in this position. This protracted posture has the potential to warp the curvature of your neck, radiate down the rest of your spine and throw your hips out of alignment. Scientific studies have confirmed this pattern. The more time you spend on your phone, the worse your posture gets.
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It doesn't end with the simple position of your spine. When the spine is regularly misaligned it has affects on internal function: nerve compression, inflammation, impaired respiratory function, poor digestion, less blood circulation to vital organs. These are all serious detriments to your health that can have a profound effect over time. And this chain of events all starts with staring at your phone when you’re waiting for food or the crosswalk signal. My advice is to just leave it in your pocket or purse, lift your head up, roll your shoulders and breathe. Your body will thank you for it.
II. SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
If you didn't know, we don’t sleep super well in America. There's a lot going on with this but one of the big culprits is screen time, especially at night when it has the most acute effects. The output from your devices--EMF radiation, blue light, and general electronic chatter--disrupts your circadian rhythms, tricks your brain into thinking it's the middle of the day, and can ruin both the quality and quantity of your sleep.
Your cell phone is probably the most culpable in all of this because it's usually: 1. the last thing in your hands at night and 2. the first thing in your hands in the morning. And in between it idly hums a few feet away from your head... the power of the cell phone is its constant proximity. Studies on cell phone use and sleep all back this up--it limits both the average amount of time spent asleep and in particular the amount of deep sleep you get.
When you don't get the right amount of deep sleep things can fall apart quickly. Most of the body’s restorative processes happen in these crucial stages:
physical repair: muscles, joints, fascia and connective tissue
brain repair: cognitive regeneration, clearing of toxins, memory consolidation
gut repair: bacterial reset and calibration of the immune system
III. STRESSED AND DEPRESSED
1. The stress cycle
When your cell phone buzzes or beeps at you, it activates a mild sympathetic nervous system response: elevation of the heart rate, release of the stress hormone cortisol, diversion of energy from the brain to the muscles in anticipation of action. Once this response is triggered it can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to get all the way back down to your normal baseline. This response is a natural part of human function but it isn't supposed to be active all the time. Chronic stress is a known killer--it runs the full gamut of physical and cognitive disorders and causes a host of diseases.
So let's do some quick math here. If you're the average person who checks their phone 144 times per day, that equates to once every 7 minutes. If the phone-triggered stress response lasts an average of 17.5 minutes--this can obviously vary depending on circumstance--the overlap could in theory keep piling up and keep you stuck in this mildly stressed state for the entire day. This is a terrible scenario for your nervous system, your health, and your sanity. If there's even a chance of this I'd say it's time you put your phone checks in check and give your brain the down time it needs.
2. Radio frequency ramifications
Turns out we can learn a lot from rodents, like how our cell phones might be affecting our biology. In a 2018 study rats were exposed to radio frequency (RF) radiation for 6 weeks. The results found that:
“Cell phone RF exposure induced significant hormonal and structural changes in adrenal gland and brain tissues. Therefore, the public should be aware and limit their exposure as much as possible”
The adrenal gland is where your body releases cortisol, so it's pretty logical that exposure to a cortisol-triggering device would affect on this area (and the coincident parts of the brain). And this was only a month and a half; I can’t imagine what their brains would've looked like after six months, a year… a decade.
Human beings are not rats but the takeaway here is still powerful. Constant exposure to cell phone radiation (no matter where it sits on the spectrum) is going to have a lasting effect of some kind, especially when our devices are so physically close to us all the time. We’re kidding ourselves if we think otherwise.
3. Phone addiction on the rise
Cell phones are like junk food. We crave them, often in overpowering fashion, but they don't actually satisfy us or make us feel better once we've "had" them... often the complete opposite. This is really the nature of any addiction. Phone addiction is no exception to this--it's strongly linked to depression, anxiety and other mood disorders. Here's what a 2017 study found:
“The positive correlation between smartphone addiction and depression is alarming… especially among younger adults and less educated users who could be at higher risk of depression.”
Causation is always a tough thing to pin down. Are people depressed because they’re on their phones all the time, or are they on their phones because they’re depressed? At the end of the day it's probably a little bit of both, but regardless this is clearly a toxic dynamic that has no positive outcome. There are plenty of activities that can break this loop and mitigate the effects of depression—exercise, time outside, socializing with real people, creative pursuits—but screen time is not one of them.
IV. MINUTES VS. MOVEMENT
There's yet another huge potential downside to cell phone use: it’s making us move less. Even if some of the 4-plus hours of screen time we log each day are happening in otherwise inert situations--watching TV, waiting for a crosswalk signal--there’s almost zero chance it’s not bleeding into other situations. More minutes on the phone equals less minutes moving and there’s no getting around this.
A 2020 study confirmed this correlation. Interestingly, results also showed that if you believe in the benefits of exercise you're less likely to be affected by phone time. Hopefully this describes you.
Another study of U.S. college students showed that cell phone use significantly decreases cardiorespiratory fitness. It also found that:
"...high frequency users were more likely than low frequency users to report forgoing opportunities for physical activity in order to use their cell phones for sedentary behaviors."
Ironically, I think the gym is actually one of the best examples of the movement-killing power of cell phones. A place that used to be dedicated to physical exercise, a mecca for movement if you will, is being overrun by social media feeds. It's normal custom to spend 2/3 or more of workout time scrolling, tapping, or texting; what used to be a quick rest before the next set is ballooning into 5 minutes of TikTok. Calories burned, sets and reps performed, strength gained, elevation of the heart rate--these are all taking a dive in favor of the phone. I'd say it's time we start leaving them in the locker.
How To Kick The Screen Habit
So how do you kick this phone habit of yours? Or at least cut back on it? Assuming you want to do either of these. It can certainly be tough at first, but once you set new patterns for yourself it gets a lot easier to forego things that used to seem essential, like reflexively pulling your phone out anytime you're idle for more than ten seconds. We're all creatures of habit as they say.
If you're like the average American that means you spend five full 24-hour days on your phone every month. That's five calendar days depriving the nervous system of down time, elevating cortisol a little elevated past its natural level, chipping away at the quality of your sleep, messing with your posture, limiting your movement. This doesn't sound like a habit you should be perpetuating.
But of course this isn't about averages and trends, it's about what you personally are doing.
On that note:
1. CHECK YOUR MINUTES
Most people drastically underestimate their screen time. One study showed this number to be about 40%, a huge margin in my opinion. So don't let yourself fall into this trap--give yourself a reality check and check your screen time stats, because umbers don't lie and they're not subjective. You might not love what you see here--it's like stepping on the scale for the first time in a year--but you need to know where you if you want to improve your habits. Change starts with awareness.
2. START THE DAY RIGHT
One of the best times to improve any habit is in the morning. Every time you wake up you set patterns for the day; consider what happens if the first thing you do is grab your phone to check emails or open the social feed. Whether or not you realize it you're telling your brain that these are important, urgent behaviors and this will follow you around for the rest of the day.
On the flip side, a little self care and reflection in the morning can have a profound effect on your habits. So try to break the phone cycle before it starts--go at least thirty minutes without screen time. Breathe for a bit, journal, do some stretching, sit by a window and sip coffee, play solitaire (with an actual card deck)… do anything but stare at your phone.
3. END THE DAY RIGHT
Screen time at night may be one of your biggest problems. Blue light, EMF exposure and cognitive overstimulation are all messing with your circadian function and disrupting your sleep. And this might also unfortunately be the toughest time to stay away--the allure of the feed is strong at night--but for the sake of your health this is something you need to start cutting back on.
The reality is that your eyes don't want any part of your phone past sundown, when blue light just confuses your brain into thinking it's the middle of the afternoon. But that may be a bit unrealistic. Start with 8:30pm as a cutoff time--that means you've checked your last text, answered your last email, liked your last post, and plugged your phone into its resting place for the night.
Find something analog to divert your attention during this part of the day: read, puzzle, sketch, get into some music. Whatever it is, make sure it's something legitimately fun and engaging that you look forward. It's too easy to slip back into screen mode so your new hobby should have as much pull as TikTok or YouTube.
3. TURN IT OFF... OR JUST LEAVE IT BEHIND
If Amazon shopping or the endless chatter of your group text is just too tempting to stay away from, there's an easy way to cut back on this--just turn your phone off. Half the reason we wind up our phones so much is because they're just sitting there waiting to be used. So take this option away and find designated times throughout the day to power down your device completely, whether it's a couple hours or even just thirty minutes to start. It will still be there if you need but it won't own you with a stream of notifications and alerts that you really don't need to see.
You'll find a big bonus here is that it instantly makes you more deliberate about when and why you use your phone. Reflexively pulling your phone right out of your pocket to idly scroll Instagram is one thing, but going to the trouble of powering your phone on just for that purpose takes on a different quality... it starts to feel a little silly in my opinion. Whether it makes more sense for you to enact this self-imposed cell phone ban during certain hours or at certain places--the gym for example--give it a try and see how your habits and your mentality may instantly start to change.
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