How Much Smartphone Use Is Not Too Much?

Smartphones are an important part of our everyday life. On average, we spend about 3 hours daily using the small technical devices. They allow us permanent availability, staying up-to-date about latest news, and usage of various offline and online applications that make our life easier from work to leisure.

In the short term, smartphone use can contribute to our happiness. However, many people do not recognize that intensive smartphone use has also a dark side.

In the longer term, smartphone use can contribute to a number of negative consequences for physical health such as decreased sleep quality, decreased posture and respiratory function, enhanced muscle fatigue and pain in the neck-shoulder region. Especially, in adolescents and young adults, time spent on the smartphone is linked to decreased fitness and enhanced risk for obesity. Considering mental health, intensive smartphone use is positively related to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Its link to life satisfaction is negative.

How Can We Protect Our Physical And Mental Health In The Age Of The Digital Revolution?

Should we stop using our smartphones completely? Or is there another—less extreme—solution?

In our recent research, we tried to find an answer to this question. We divided 619 voluntary participants into three groups: One group was asked to completely waive smartphone use for one week, one group was asked to reduce smartphone use by one hour daily for the week, and one group continued smartphone use without any changes. To measure impact, we interviewed our participants about their mental health and lifestyle habits at multiple timepoints up to four months after the investigation.

Both the complete waiving and the reduction of smartphone use had positive effects on mental health immediately after the investigation week and after up to four months later. Depression and anxiety symptoms decreased, while life satisfaction increased. Also, their lifestyle became healthier. In both groups, participants engaged in more physical activity such as jogging, cycling, and swimming, using their newfound free time for the exercise. Notably, regular moderate physical activity protects our physical and mental health. There were even more benefits than these. In the reduction group, individuals who were regular smokers reduced their nicotine consumption.

Especially interesting was that some of the positive effects were stronger and more stable over time in participants who reduced their smartphone use time compared to participants who waved smartphone use completely. Thus, it seems that it is not necessary to stop our smartphone use completely to protect our mental health.

The Takeaways

Here's what you should remember from this research:

• Be aware of the potential negative effects of intensive smartphone use
• Control and reduce the time that you spend daily on the small technical devices

Try to consciously limit your smartphone use—for example to a maximum of 1 hour a day. Each time you want to grab the smartphone, ask yourself: Is this necessary? Is there a real need? Or can I achieve my aim without the smartphone? In this way, you can learn to appreciate better the time you do spend on the device, and you will get more time to consciously live life instead of missing the most important things because of staring at a small rectangular screen.

For Further Reading

Brailovskaia, J., Delveaux, J., John, J., Wicker, V., Noveski, A., Kim, S., . . . Margraf, J. (2022). Finding the "sweet spot" of smartphone use: Reduction or abstinence to increase well-being and healthy lifestyle?! An experimental intervention study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. doi:10.1037/xap0000430

Julia Brailovskaia is Privat-Lecturer and faculty member at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany). Among other topics she investigates the impact of media use on mental health and develops ways how to protect mental health in the age of the digital revolution.