A recent month-long study has confirmed that reducing the time spent accessing the internet on smartphones can make people happier and more focused. The findings suggest that dialing back on smartphone internet use could have significant benefits for mental health and cognitive functioning.
On average, Americans spend almost five hours a day using their smartphones. Half of these users worry that they rely on their devices too much. Concerned about the potential negative impacts, Noah Castelo and his colleagues set out to determine whether constant internet access through smartphones harms cognitive abilities and mental well-being.
The research team recruited 467 participants through Prolific.co, an online labor pool. Participants were asked to install an app on their iPhones that blocked all internet access on their phones for two weeks. Half of the group had their phones blocked for the first two weeks while the other half served as a control group. After two weeks, the groups switched roles.
The experiment proved challenging for many. Of the 467 participants who agreed to install the app, only 266 followed through, and just 119 had the block active for at least 10 days. Despite the hurdles, the results were telling.
Blocking internet access reduced screen time from an average of 314 minutes a day to 161 minutes a day. This significant decrease led to notable improvements in subjective well-being, mental health, and sustained attention ability. The enhancement in attention was equivalent to erasing 10 years of age-related decline. Additionally, the improvement in symptoms of depression was larger than the average effect of pharmaceutical antidepressants.
For those who had their internet blocked during the first two weeks, the positive effects lingered. Their levels of subjective well-being and mental health remained significantly higher even at the four-week mark, after two weeks of being back online.
The authors believe these benefits stem from several factors. Disconnecting led to increased time spent in the offline world, decreased media consumption, heightened social connectedness, improved feelings of self-control, and more sleep. According to the researchers, spending less time with a connected device may benefit many people.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.