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Brain Circuits
Can you control your phone habit?
Unchecked phone use can erode our mental well-being, dull our professional edge, and disrupt our relationships. Here are four tips to help regain control.
1. Be self-aware
First, notice how you think, feel, and behave when separated from your phone. Be honest with yourself. You might ask colleagues, friends, and family if they’ve noticed worrisome behavior patterns. If so, make a commitment to change.
2. Self-regulate
Establish clear boundaries. Consider making meals and family gatherings phone-free or introducing a pre-bedtime hour away from your screen. Reduce notifications and put your phone away from your desk, dinner table, or bedside. Enforcing boundaries helps create a healthier balance between the benefits brought by your phone and other meaningful aspects of life. Like any habit, breaking it takes time and repetition.
3. Turn to healthy coping strategies
Instead of avoiding difficult feelings, engage in alternative emotion and stress-regulation strategies. Resources to help you mentally detach from the demands of work and recover might include physical exercise, meditation, hobbies, building human relationships, and spending time in nature.
4. Seek social support
If you have outlined what works for you based on the previous three tips but find it hard to put your plan into action, it’s time to recruit help from others. Friends, family members, or health professionals can give you practical and emotional support to commit to your plan. Identify who in your network could be a helpful ally. If you feel shy or even ashamed to admit that you are struggling, please know that you are far from alone. Close peers are likely to respond positively to your request because showing vulnerability, although it takes courage, will foster bonding and forge connections. You might propose building a joint action plan and providing each other with mutual support. Apart from leveraging your existing social network, know that professional help is available, too. This can include cognitive behavioral therapy with a mental health professional who specializes in addiction or digital dependency. Workshops or support groups focused on managing digital consumption can also provide valuable tools and peer support.
How common is phone addiction? Too common, according to our recent study of 160 employees. We found:
- 50% of respondents would be categorized as “at-risk” or “problematic users,” with the costs of phone use potentially outweighing its benefits in a number of areas.
- On average, we’re interrupted by our phones every 13 minutes of our awake time. Younger individuals in entry-level jobs are interrupted even more frequently – every 9.5 minutes.
Phones’ negative impacts – including feelings of stress – come less from the actual time spent on them and more from our experience of dependency and compulsion and the negative emotions that are wound up with them.
By recognizing a possible phone addiction, we can begin to redraw the boundaries and be more intentional about when we engage. This is not merely about cutting down screen time – it’s about reclaiming the human experience, rediscovering the joy of undistracted moments, and forging deeper, more meaningful connections in our personal and professional lives.
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