By Emmalyn Vest
“The first step toward change is awareness.”
Do you ever feel that you can never get away from your screens enough? Often, it feels as if we are attached to our screens from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep at night. The average person in the United States was shown to spend just over seven hours a day on devices with internet access (Kemp, 2024). This has resulted in Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU) becoming a chronic issue in the population. While screens are indispensable, overuse can harm mental well-being. Mindfulness provides a science-backed way to mitigate these effects.
Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU) is the excessive use of smartphone devices, often to the point of expressing symptoms similar to that of substance use disorders. Some of these symptoms are compulsively checking a device, difficulty focusing, and withdrawal symptoms when separated from the phone (Elhai et al., 2018). The mere use of these smart devices isn't the only thing impacted by PSU. PSU has been shown to have significant effects on mental health in general, with particular effects on anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
It has been found that smartphone use, especially during the nighttime sleeping hours has been linked to a significant deficit of sleep in comparison to those who don’t use their devices within those hours (Dissing et al., 2021). Several clinical studies have also linked depression and PSU to one another, and while PSU doesn’t cause depression, it can exacerbate the disorder. These studies have shown that depressive symptom severity and those using their smartphones in a problematic manner are strongly correlated. Both implicitly and through intervention effect, it can be shown that PSU can be a factor that leads to more severe depressive symptoms (Yang et al., 2020).
So we’re all going to be devoured by the screen-time monster, right? No! While these effects are shown, it is important not to make smartphones and screens seem like monsters under the bed. Technology opens doors and helps our world run more efficiently. It allows for entertainment, communication, and learning like you are now! All things are good in moderation and one great way to moderate screen time is through mindfulness.
How often have you picked up your phone to text and call someone only to end up scrolling through reels? All too often we don’t even remember what we’re watching and mindlessly use the internet. Mindfulness is the practice of awareness and staying in the present moment. It is an intentional awareness of thoughts, actions, and emotions. Often, mindfulness can help us put things in perspective and help us see where our habits may need to change.
Mindfulness has been shown to improve mood in smartphone users, enhance self-regulation, and have a generally positive effect on overall well-being and mental health (Economides et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2022). So, how can you apply this? Three ways to practice mindfulness with screen time are through tracking your screen time, taking mindfulness breaks throughout your day, and digitally detoxing.
1) Building Self-Awareness through Tracking
One of the best ways to be mindful of your screen time is to track your screen time. Most modern smartphones have built-in screen time tracking, which is usually accessible in the phone settings. When used mindfully, these apps can help lower screen time and increase overall awareness of cell phone use (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Chen, 2022). While these can be useful, sometimes there are ways to make mindfulness of screen time easier and more fun. There are apps such as Opal, Forest, and ScreenZen that help track and moderate screen time. In these apps, you can set goals for your screen time and work on mindfully decreasing screen time, and in the case of Opal and Forest, gamifying the process. By tracking and limiting screen time through these apps, you can become more mindful of your habits and slowly decrease your screen time in the process.
2) Schedule Mindfulness Breaks
Implement short breaks when using technology or set alarms or reminders for yourself to take breaks when scrolling on the internet and throughout your day. Taking short breaks for mindfulness can help you become more aware of how you’re using your time and if applicable, change your habits for the better. In taking these breaks throughout the day instead of having unstructured screen time, stress levels have been shown to go down on both a physical and psychological level (Feldman et al., 2023).
3) Digitally Detox
Set aside times and places to be screen-free. This could mean dedicating rooms to be phone-free such as the bedroom, dining table, etc. One great example of setting time aside to be screen-free would be to turn off all devices one hour before bed. It has been shown that university students who used their phones at night received 2.2 fewer hours per night of sleep compared to those who stopped using them before bedtime (Tymofiyeva et al., 2020). Another way to digitally detox is to gradually pair down on non-essential notifications. This can potentially lower rates of impulsive checking that all too often lead to scrolling.
Often overcoming bad habits is a long and hard-fought process. There can often be many things we view as obstacles in our journey. One would be a lack of time. Making time for mindfulness, especially surrounding screen time can actually save you hours a day. By taking five minutes to be mindful, you might decide to put your phone down and go finish a long-abandoned project or an assignment that you’ve been procrastinating. Keeping this in mind, change is hard! There will be discomfort in breaking old habits, but it is worth the discomfort. There’s no comfort in the growing zone.
Another way you can work towards better screen time habits is by making specific and realistic goals. You may not be able to cut your screen time by 90% in one week, but 10-20% might feel far more feasible. Just make sure that after you set your goals, give yourself grace if you haven’t achieved them on the first try. Mindfulness isn’t about perfection and there is always room for growth.
I challenge you to try one of these techniques this week and see if it changes your perspective on screen time in your daily life. Further resources for mindfulness can be found on apps like Headspace, calm, and Insight Timer. There is also a wonderful module on Mindfulness at https://mybestself101.org/mindfulness that has many more tools at your disposal. By being mindful of our screen use, we can regain balance in our lives and live more intentionally each day.
“Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.”
References
Economides, M., Martman, J., Bell, M. J., & Sanderson, B. (2018). Improvements in stress, affect, and irritability following brief use of a mindfulness-based smartphone app: A randomized controlled trial. Mindfulness, 9(5), 1584–1593. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0905-4
Dissing, A. S., Andersen, T. O., Nørup, L. N., Clark, A., Nejsum, M., & Rod, N. H. (2021). Daytime and nighttime smartphone use: A study of associations between multidimensional smartphone behaviours and sleep among 24,856 Danish adults. Journal of Sleep Research, 30(6), Article e13356. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13356
Elhai, J. D., Levine, J. C., O'Brien, K. D., & Armour, C. (2018). Distress tolerance and mindfulness mediate relations between depression and anxiety sensitivity with problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, 477–484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.026
Feldman, G., Westine, M., Edelman, A., & Higgs, M. (2023). A mindful alternative to screen time: The short-term effects of a breath-focused mindfulness exercise vs. unstructured smartphone screen time on heart rate variability and relaxation. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 42(6), 581–607. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2023.42.6.581
Kemp, S. (2024, January 31). Digital 2024: Global Overview Report. DataReportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-global-overview-report
Liu, F., Zhang, Z., Liu, S., & Feng, Z. (2022). Effectiveness of brief mindfulness intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use: The mediating role of self-control. PLoS ONE, 17(12), Article e0279621. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279621
Oeldorf-Hirsch, A., & Chen, Y. (2022). Mobile mindfulness: Predictors of mobile screen time tracking. Computers in Human Behavior, 129, Article 107170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107170
Tymofiyeva, O., Yuan, J. P., Kidambi, R., Huang, C., Henje, E., Rubinstein, M. L., Jariwala, N., Max, J. E., Yang, T. T., & Xu, D. (2020). Neural correlates of smartphone dependence in adolescents. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, Article 564629. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.564629
Yang, J., Fu, X., Liao, X., & Li, Y. (2020). Association of problematic smartphone use with poor sleep quality, depression, and anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychiatry Research, 284, Article 112686. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112686