'Distracted, Distant and Drained': How Smartphones Impact Mental Health, Part 1

Adults and adolescents are on a trajectory of increased screen time. We're hooked on the benefits — but at what cost?

by Amanda Sorell

If you're the average U.S. adult, your phone might be the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning. After turning off your alarm, maybe you play a game, scroll through TikTok, or check your emails, hopping from app to app to clear notifications. As the day wears on, you may steal away to social media or messaging apps during many of your spare moments — while you commute, between work tasks, over your meals. And your phone might be the last thing you look at before you fall asleep, the screen's glow the only light in the room as you thumb past a medley of news and entertainment, much of it catered to your tastes. By the end of the day, you'll likely have spent more than four hours on your phone. That's around 30 hours per week, and almost 10 weeks per year — or about 18% of your life spent on your device.

This is a peak we've reached in just two decades, from the time in the early aughts when Facebook felt fresh to today's total ubiquity of smartphones and social media: In the United States, 90% of adults and 95% of teenagers have cellphones and use them to shop, navigate, and relate to one another. And as our time spent on our phones has grown, so has our understanding of how our devices are rewiring our brains.

Cellphones and Mental Health

Just as we're only a couple of decades into smartphone and social media use, we're only a couple of decades into studies on their ever-developing use. Because of this, many researchers point to the need for more studies on the long-term links between smartphone use and cognitive functioning and say that "strong inferences regarding causality cannot be drawn" from existing literature. Still, some patterns between phone use and mental health have been tentatively identified. Research shows that smartphones can diminish our memory, focus, and sleep, causing us to feel "distracted, distant and drained." Even the presence of a phone sitting silently beside us can split our attention between the physical and the digital and "impair cognitive functioning." At any hour of our choosing, we can consume news and entertainment from all around the world, with hundreds of daily advertisements wedged in between. And this digital cacophony can keep us up at night, which further weakens our ability to focus.

We may have access to more information than ever in the palms of our hands, but our smartphones also enable multitasking, encourage skimming, and curtail our comprehension, while social media in turn rewards misinformation. We may be able to obtain any kind of entertainment our hearts could desire, but that potent overload's pull can ultimately become addictive, and even lessen our enjoyment of what's happening offline. And we may be able to connect with people across time and distance, an astonishing revolution in communication, but our smartphones can simultaneously increase our feelings of loneliness. As for how phones impact in-person interactions, we've all been around — or been — the friend who's less present because they're staring at the slick brick in their hand.

In discussions about smartphone use, many people will say phones are simply a tool, and that any impacts, good or bad, are all in how we use this tool. Of course, how we use our phones, and the context in which we're using them, does matter. But so does asking whether we're really the ones wielding the tool. No implements in our at-home toolboxes are designed to encourage their own compulsive use, drive compulsive consumption, and enrich corporations like this tool does. And rarely does this refrain implicate the system that brings such a tool about, from the environmental impact of the servers that power our socials, to the smartphone "conflict" minerals mined from the lands of poor and Indigenous communities, to the factories with hazardous working conditions where phones are assembled, to the waste smartphones generate, much of which is shipped to far-away landfills, where it leaches toxic chemicals, or to "e-graveyards" overseas, where workers burn the waste to remove the metals, thereby breathing in the toxic fumes.

Despite these individual and systemic impacts, adults struggle to set boundaries between themselves and their phones. And what's difficult for adults is even harder for adolescents. Stay tuned for Part 2 in this mental health miniseries to learn more about how local educators are addressing the impacts of smartphones and social media on youth.

Mental Health Check-In

In the meantime, while we're nearing the end of Mental Health Month, monitoring how our mental health intersects with our technology is always relevant, especially as our tech tools continue to develop. Maybe you're happy with your use; maybe you want to experiment with boundaries and seek support. Many people who desire healthier engagement with phones will likely lean toward moderation. Others may find that moderation is more difficult than abstinence, or might be unwilling to tolerate the phone's individual or systemic impacts. Whichever category you fall into, you can choose from the following tips accordingly.

• Replace screen time. If you like to do the crossword on your phone, get a crossword book. Instead of spending an hour scrolling, spend an hour reading, with your phone in a different room. Set an alarm clock that's not on your phone so you're not automatically engaging with it first thing every morning. (You can find old CD player alarm clocks at thrift stores that can help you make use of the mixed-CD collection gathering dust in the car or closet.)
• Set boundaries, whether you choose to forgo use over meals, in the morning, before bed, or while you're with friends. (Though seeking group consensus will be best, so you're not left in silence while the rest of your friends check their notifications.)
• Turn off notifications. If you're seeing those little red bubbles or drop-down alerts less frequently, you'll have less incentive to look at your phone.
• Put your phone in airplane mode. You'll still be able to check the time, but you won't be able to send or receive messages or use apps.
• Use grayscale to limit screen time. Your phone has a setting that will turn your screen and its eye-catching, appealing colors to a black-and-white that's less visually stimulating.
• Use screen time apps that track and control how much time you spend on your phone. While some find these apps' warnings are too easy to ignore, they'll at least give you one extra hurdle to clear before proceeding with phone use.
• Buy a kitchen safe. If you struggle to moderate, get a lockbox to take the option out of your hands. You can set a timer on the "kSafe" for as long as you want a break — but once it's locked, there's no way to open it until that timer's up, so be sure to have a Plan B in case of emergencies.
• Delete the apps you use the most. If they aren't there, you won't feel the urge to open them.
• Detox. If you need support more than you need boundaries, Bellevue-based recovery center ReStart, which is focused on "Behavioral healthcare for emotional wellness in the digital age," offers recovery programs for video game, screen time, and social media use.
• Downgrade to a "dumbphone." If you're ready to rid yourself of a smartphone and its impacts entirely, you can purchase a phone that's limited to calling and texting, so you can still keep in touch with others, or a Lightphone, which is "designed to be used as little as possible."

Amanda Sorell is a storyteller who lives in Seattle. She's an editor for the Emerald. Read her newsletter at eClips.Substack.com.

📸 Featured Image: Photo via kittirat roekburi/Shutterstock.com