Everywhere you look, people are glued to their smartphones. If you haven't noticed this phenomenon, it's likely because you, too, are glued to the little dopamine-deliverer.
In March, Meta and YouTube had to pay a combined $6m after a US court found that the tech companies' platforms were designed to be addictive. Put such tempting apps in a device that's carried everywhere, and that's a recipe for compulsive behaviour.
"We've outsourced our brain to California – our emotions, our thinking," says Prof Marcantonio Spada, emeritus professor of addictive behaviours and mental health at London South Bank University, and chief clinical officer at Onebright, a private therapy platform.
"I started my career in academia researching alcohol and nicotine, and then I came to realise 15 years ago that we would end up having a bigger problem with technology," he says.
Phone addiction doesn't yet have the social stigma of alcoholism, nor the obvious physical side effects, but there are still interesting parallels. "On some levels it's comparable, because engaging with any form of technological platform provides positive and negative reinforcement, exactly like alcohol does," says Spada.
Unlike addictive substances, apps are also designed to provide intermittent reinforcement, he says, with rewards such as funny videos, followers and other notifications. "Your brain tends to remain in a state of anticipation, which you don't necessarily get with the traditional substance addictive patterns," he says.
Searches for "phone addiction" have been steadily growing over the past decade, with people sharing tips on reducing use. Apps and hardware have also been developed to help people rethink their relationship with technology.
"About seven or eight years ago, it started coming up as a topic a lot in my individual work and in couples work: phones causing relationship issues, mental health issues, sleep issues, concentration issues," says Hilda Burke, psychotherapist and author of The Phone Addiction Workbook.
Rather than phones being entertaining, she observes that patients correlate phone use with a "sort of low mood and general sort of malaise". And to a psychotherapist, the explanation seemed obvious. "The thing we were originally trying to self-medicate – conflict, a problem at work or a feeling of being lost in our lives, whatever it may be – that's still there after four or five hours of scrolling," says Burke. "But now on top of that, we've got the hangover from the scrolling, which is: 'Why did I waste that time? What am I doing?'"
"A lot of the language used around spending time on apps is very passive: 'I found myself…' It's not: 'I chose to go on Instagram – I wanted to see Brooklyn Beckham and what people are saying about that. I wanted to spend two hours really doing a deep dive.' People don't do that. What I try to do with my clients is to make it conscious, to choose what you're doing."
If you recognise yourself in this behaviour and want to cut down, help is at hand. We've asked experts, from a psychotherapist to a professor of addictive behaviour, about the best ways to decrease screen time.
How to reduce your screen time
Track your time
Monitoring your phone use can be a wake-up call about how much scrolling you do. Android and Apple devices have built-in tools for monitoring and controlling screen time. On the former, it's Digital Wellbeing, and on the latter, it's Screen Time. Both let you track time on apps and limit your access to specific times or a maximum duration if you feel you're spending too long on them.
Spada is sceptical of these tools, observing that overmonitoring can lead to developing additional anxieties, but accepts that the "odd alert" about phone usage is fine. He's more sceptical of our devices monitoring things such as sleep, as this can create artificial worries. But if admitting you have a problem is the first step, clear evidence that you've wasted literal days of your finite number on Earth is a compelling wake-up call that there should be more to life than this.
Schedule screen-free time
Tear yourself away from your phone with a diversionary activity. What ultimately worked for psychotherapist Burke was something she calls wait training. That is small pockets of time when the phone is either left behind or at least switched off and out of reach.
"I started small," she says – not taking her phone when walking her greyhound before building to longer periods of phone abstinence. She now has Sunday as a screen-free day.
"The reality is, it's actually really difficult to go without your phone, particularly if you're coming from a high level of dependency," she says. "When anyone's recovering from addiction, there's that kind of void. But I think if we get to a certain stage, we start getting into the rewards. It's no longer deprivation – it's rewarding to choose to go without."
On Sundays, Burke's data is turned off, so friends can still call, but any WhatsApp messages will have to wait until Monday. Taking in nature and engaging with other dog-walkers rather than being "harassed" and "pinged at" by her phone has proved rewarding. "I feel refreshed at the end of the day," she says.
Change your lockscreen
Put a picture on your lockscreen of something you could be engaging with in real time. Another tip Burke recommends is switching the photo on your lockscreen to something that will remind you of what you're missing in the real world. In her case, it's a picture of the aforementioned greyhound, Bran, but it could be anything. Want to learn French? Upload a picture of Paris. Want to exercise more? Add a picture of you in healthier times.
Cut the notifications
Removing all but the essential notifications might make revisits to your phone less compelling. Notifications are one of the most devious smartphone creations – a siren song drawing you back in as soon as you've escaped. Removing all but the essentials is a good way of minimising your phone's draw. A text message may be life-or-death important, but a time-limited 30% discount on Deliveroo is not.
This may be counterproductive for some people, however. Without notifications, how will they know if they're missing something? "If you don't know, it's kind of like Skinner's rats, where they peck away the whole time because there might be an update," says Burke.
Make your screen less engaging
Appealing visuals are another reason apps are often so addictive, so what if we made them less visually appealing? In Android and iOS settings is the option to turn your phone greyscale, sapping all the colour from apps and making phones that bit less pleasant to use. This is what Spada refers to as "destimulation" of the device, and it certainly makes the lurid colours used by Instagram influencers less compelling to flip through, though in my experience the effect diminishes over time.
Keep your phone out of reach
Distancing yourself from your phone can make a world of difference. Lots of people find themselves aimlessly scrolling to delay getting up in the morning or, worse, as a last activity before sleep. "I stop any form of interactive technology use after 7pm, because sleep will be affected," says Spada. (Interestingly, television is fine, because it's passive, he explains: "It's the interactivity that affects our brain badly.")
Ideally, then, you want to keep your phone out of the bedroom, but if not, at least keep it out of reach. "Physical distancing is extremely important," says Spada. "In a bedroom, I would keep it two or three metres away from me. If it's truly important, the phone will ring, but other than that it shouldn't be a distraction."
Put a rubber band around your phone
About as old tech as it gets. Surprisingly, a rubber band wrapped around a phone can prove a deterrent for those with sufficient willpower.
Seek help from apps
It may seem counterintuitive, but many swear that the way to beat app addiction is with more apps. Specifically, apps that use the same gamification and mental trickery of the worst offenders, but for the opposite outcome. Expect nagging reminders, rewards for good behaviour and the dopamine hit typically associated with phone use for periods of digital abstinence. These come in paid or free forms. BePresent packs its most powerful deterrents behind a £3.99 a month paywall, but ScreenZen operates on a donation system and can be fully used without charge.
Brick your smartphone
Stick a magnetic Brick to your fridge, front door (if it's made with metal) or any other metal surface – it makes instant gratification harder. The trouble with most of the above solutions is that they require an element of willpower before you start seeing the rewards. Deleting problem apps might be the easiest way to rid yourself of them, but they're all too easily reinstalled. Besides, what if you need occasional access?
That's where Brick comes in. It's a small plastic tile that magnetically sticks to your fridge or other metal surfaces. It's also the gateway to your phone: tap once to lock the apps of your choice and tap again to unlock them. You can use your phone as normal, but you'll find that problem apps are closed until you unlock them with Brick.
That may not sound too removed from software solutions, but the physical distance makes all the difference. Essentially, it uses human laziness against us: you're free to check in on Instagram whenever you want, but can you really be bothered to go all the way downstairs to unlock your phone?
Switch to a dumbphone
Feature phones, to give them their non-pejorative name, give you basic call and text functionality either stripped of internet connectivity entirely or with access so limited it's a chore to endure. The reborn Nokia 3210 will certainly fix your addiction to TikTok, and you can also forget about that nightly charging ritual.
Spada, however, is concerned about the "avoidance v control" debate. "Some people say: 'Well, if I want to get over my alcohol problem, I need to start avoiding pubs and the friends that like to drink,'" he says.
"If you are on the lighter side of the addiction spectrum, it's actually not good to avoid the pub, because you start to think that you don't have control over your own behaviours." In other words, this is really only a solution if you're "overwhelmed" by smartphone usage.
There's also a more practical concern. "Moving to a dumbphone requires others' buy-in," says Burke, highlighting the prevalence of QR codes, e-tickets and the all-important WhatsApp groups. "What are you going to put in to compensate? How are you going to make sure your social connections are maintained?"
Switch to a smartphone designed for digital detox
One option is a smartphone that makes it easier to disconnect, such as TCL's NxtPaper devices. The displays are anti-glare, with low blue light, and offer a paper-like experience. A switch on the side of recent models cuts notifications and turns things greyscale for interruption-free reading.
Go cold turkey
Get away from your phone and commune with nature instead. A digital detox – when your phone is safely locked away, letting you clear your head with nature and more analogue pursuits – is the nuclear option. The hope is that, as you have seen how much calmer your brain can be, the analogue habits will stick – or at least make you rethink how you live with your phone. Several UK and Ireland retreats have sprung up in recent years, including Live Off Grid, Eco Retreats, Unplugged and Samsú.
Spending 72 hours away from phones can make a real difference, says Spada – but there's an important caveat. Much like rehab for alcohol and drug addiction, this will only work long term if you return to "a restructured environment" with "new principles" of phone use, otherwise a relapse into bad practices is likely.
Burke believes that the cold turkey approach has its limits for most people. "A lot of people do 'detox holidays' – and they tend to be people who 'tox' a lot for the rest of the year and then compensate." So it's all about what happens once people return to the grid.
Hector Hughes, co-founder of off-grid cabin rental company Unplugged, concedes that it's not a magic bullet. "Does it stop people from being addicted? It doesn't. But the more people do this, the more they crave this much healthier state."
For more, try these 55 screen-free activities
