Would you share your phone’s screen time average with your friends? How about with your colleagues? If you’re like most people, the answer to that question is probably no.
It’s a common experience to feel embarrassed by the amount of time you spend on your phone and to make it a goal to spend less time scrolling and texting. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 58% of adults in the United States said they’re on their phone too much, and a 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that 39% of teens have made a concerted effort to be on their phone less.
Being on your phone isn’t inherently bad; smartphones offer services such as map functionality, banking capabilities and the ability to stay in touch with long-distance family and friends. But there is a fine line. Too much phone use can lead to lost time, increased symptoms of depression and anxiety, and a lack of connection with loved ones, making it understandable why lots of folks do want to unplug a little more.
It isn’t an easy feat to break up with your phone, though ― especially if you’re used to being on it for hours each day. This is where a practice from Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy research group in Washington, D.C., comes in. I first heard about this practice on an episode of Vox’s “The Gray Area” podcast, where Rosen talked with host Sean Illing about phone use.
The exercise outlined on the podcast is pretty straightforward:
For a 24-hour period, don’t pick up your phone during the ‘in-between’ moments, like while waiting for the subway or during a break between meetings.
“This is completely unscientific in the sense that I devised it as a test for myself when I was researching and writing my book … I noticed I reach for my phone too often during brief moments of delay during my day,” Rosen told HuffPost.
“What I did, and what I’ve challenged a lot of my friends and family to do as well, is to take 24 hours and not reach for your phone when you have a moment of pause,” she added, referring to these instances as “interstitial moments.”
This 24-hour exercise may sound easy, but it’s anything but. Our phones are designed to keep us wanting more, Rosen noted; they give us a brief dopamine hit. But it can be a rewarding exercise to try.
“What the challenge did is make me realize that I wasn’t noticing what was going on around me, that I wasn’t paying attention to things and then I also wasn’t giving my brain a break to just not be stimulated by something,” Rosen said.
After the 24-hour exercise, Rosen decided she wanted to live more like that every day and, ultimately, have more awareness of the world around her. This exercise isn’t meant to be a punishment; instead, it’s meant to be a lesson in awareness, she said.
Jenny Wise, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of Mediatox on Substack, said what she finds encouraging about this exercise is that 24 hours isn’t too long of a time to try something. You’ll also likely see gains at the end of the timeline.
“What is really fun about this work is when you put boundaries in place, you do see the benefits quite quickly, more so than we do in other areas of our life,” Wise told HuffPost.
For instance, in a 2023 study, researchers at Iowa State University found that limiting social media use to 30 minutes a day decreased depression and anxiety in college students.
You can take this 24-hour challenge one step further by keeping your phone out of your bedroom when you go to sleep and wake up, Rosen said on the Vox podcast. Instead of using your phone as an alarm, get a regular alarm clock to wake you up in the morning so you don’t immediately jump into email or social media. Wise said this can help make your bedroom a sacred space from the rest of the world.
“Not letting your phone in that space is going to be even more valuable than you would think. It’s not just the time for your mind to recover, it’s actually telling yourself that sacred space is real and safe space is real,” Wise said.
Why try this? Because our brains aren’t meant to deal with constant stimulation.
The moments of nothing are necessary for our mental and emotional health. The incessant phone pings and notifications can lead to overstimulation.
“What we know, both from neuroscience research and just everyday, commonsense human experience, if you become overstimulated, that can lead to all sorts of feelings,” Rosen said. This includes anxiety, nervousness and feeling overwhelmed.
That overwhelm is only made worse in this day and age when we have access to a “fire hose of information,” she noted, where at any time we can open up our phones and see what’s happening all over the world. “But we’re actually not hardwired to be able to process and understand all of that, that’s just not the way our brains work,” Rosen added.
Pausing throughout the day and giving your mind a break from stimulation is akin to a period of quiet healing and rest, she said. In a way, this allows you to become bored, and that is a good thing.
“I know that people would say, ‘Oh, but I like the distraction, why should I want to be bored? Boredom is inefficient. Boredom is bad for me, too.’ But in fact, we know that boredom can lead to creativity,” Rosen said.
Our phones also blunt the ability to process emotions, and taking a break can eventually help bring a sense of calm.
For lots of people, phones offer a distraction from uncomfortable situations or emotions.
“I think the addiction that we have to distraction is a very real addiction,” Wise said.
When you let your mind wander instead of scrolling social media, your brain may go to anxious thoughts instead of pleasant ones, and that’s perfectly OK.
“You’re at least aware of your own thoughts. You’re not trying to run away or escape from those thoughts by looking at the phone,” Rosen said.
Think about it — say you’re nervous about an issue with your family. Instead of thinking about that problem, it’s probably easier to distract yourself by picking up your phone to catch up on social media. Or if you’re losing patience with the person in line ahead of you at the grocery store, it’s probably also easier to angrily text a friend about the situation instead of sitting in the real world and being patient.
Reality can be hard to deal with, Wise stressed, but this 24-hour exercise is one way to practice developing the muscles necessary for staying in reality, whether it’s good or not so good.
“And being able to sit comfortably with your thoughts instead of drowning them out through phone use helps develop a healthier sense of self, patience and calm,” Rosen said.
Wise explained that these moments of mind wandering and boredom are “micromoments,” and “our mental health is fortified and strengthened by them.” Between the loneliness epidemic in the country and rising rates of depression, Wise wouldn’t be surprised if “we discovered one day that our mental health crisis is a result of not having these micromoments anymore.”
“Your brain needs time to digest input just as your stomach needs time to digest food,” Wise said.
“I think the most important thing to keep in mind if you’re going to try this is that your day-to-day, moment-by-moment choices are actually really important for your long-term sense of well-being,” Rosen said.
Not picking up your phone in the five minutes before your subway arrives may feel like a small choice, but, over time, these choices add up. Letting your mind wander or noticing those around you at the subway station does eventually change your state of mind.
“I think it really will help a lot of people feel not only a little more calm and in control, but also just to be more thoughtful and open to the experiences of the other people that we all share the world with,” Rosen said.