Here‘s a simple — but possibly eye-opening — thought experiment:
- Step 1: On a piece of paper, without looking it up, write down the estimated amount of time you spend per day on your phone.
- Step 2: Go to the “Screen Time” feature, typically located in the settings app on your phone. What is the daily average?
If there was a noticeable difference between your estimated screen time and your actual screen time, you’re in good company. On average, Americans unlock their phone 160 times a day (every 9 minutes!) and spend over 5 hours online daily. Perhaps most surprisingly, they underestimate their smartphone usage by a whopping 40% compared to their actual use.
At what point is smartphone use a problem? As smartphones have become an indispensable aspect of our daily professional and personal lives, a growing body of research has explored the question of whether you can become addicted to your smartphone.
What is smartphone addiction?
If the mere thought of putting your phone away for a few hours makes you break out in a cold sweat, you might consider whether your smartphone use has become problematic, reflecting underlying addiction — and if so, what you can do about it.
Smartphone addiction is similar to nomophobia — the condition of “no-mobile-phone phobia” or the fear of being without a smartphone. Nomophobia, which refers to the sense of psychological distress that you might feel if you’re away from your phone for too long, may be an early sign of a developing smartphone addiction.
As for smartphone addiction itself, it’s a relatively new concept that doesn’t yet have an entry in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-V, the official encyclopedia of psychiatric illness). In fact, it was only in 2015 that researchers proposed the first set of criteria to diagnose smartphone addiction as a distinct psychiatric condition.
Interestingly, to be diagnosed with smartphone addiction, this criteria requires more than just spending a lot of time using a smartphone every day (after all, most of us do that). Addiction hinges on “clinically significant functional impairment or distress” over a three-month period, in which smartphone use leads to negative consequences in your day-to-day life and well-being. Specific symptoms may include:
- Feelings of irritability or sadness after a period without smartphones.
- Use of smartphones in dangerous situations (such as while driving or crossing streets).
- Repeated failed attempts to quit or reduce smartphone use despite a persistent desire to do so.
How do I know if I have a smartphone problem?
If you are concerned that you have smartphone addiction, it’s probably best to be seen by a psychiatrist or other mental health professional. There’s no lab test or imaging required for a diagnosis, but questionnaires such as the 10-item Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS) can be helpful in picking up on key warning signs and symptoms of smartphone addiction, as well as the impact that smartphones are having on your daily life and well-being.
Each item in the SAS is a statement that is rated on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). These include statements such as:
- I miss work that I planned, due to smartphone use.
- I feel pain in my wrists or at the back of my neck while using a smartphone.
- I would never give up using my smartphone even if my daily life were greatly affected by it.
If you score high enough on the SAS, you meet criteria for problematic smartphone use —and might even have smartphone addiction, depending on the circumstances of your smartphone use.
To combat the growing threat of smartphone addiction, researchers at the University of Toronto, Harvard University and McGill University have launched a resource called Healthy Screens to help people better assess their smartphone use and take basic steps to improve their relationship to technology.
On the site, you can take a 3-minute version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale to measure your own smartphone habits. If your results are concerning, you can discuss this further with your healthcare team.
Who is more likely to have problems with smartphone usage?
Although smartphone addiction affects both men and women, a large-scale study of smartphone addiction in 2023 involving more than 50,000 participants in over 40 countries found that women consistently scored higher than men on the SAS and were more likely to meet criteria for problematic smartphone use.
Researchers theorized that this may be because the ways in which men and women use their smartphones are different: Women, especially younger women, may be more likely to use phones for social connection, such as communicating with friends and family via social media or following social influencers. These types of online activities involve social validation (for example, getting “likes” on Instagram posts) and are therefore typically more likely to be habit-forming.
What are the possible consequences of using my smartphone too much?
Problematic smartphone use comes with a potential host of negative consequences, including associated increased rates of:
- Depression.
- Anxiety.
- Alcohol use disorder.
- Insomnia.
- Migraines.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome.
It’s important to note that these studies only look at correlations and don’t establish cause and effect. Nevertheless, if you already have these conditions, excessive smartphone use could either worsen your symptoms or make it harder to improve with treatment.
How can I cut down on the amount of time I spend on my phone?
The Healthy Screens experts recommend a number of simple changes that you can make to reduce smartphone use, such as the following:
- Keep your phone in a separate room while sleeping. 70% of Americans say that they sleep with their smartphones — either because they are “on call” to friends and family or simply because they use their phones as alarms. If you’re sleeping next to your phone, it may be a lot harder to establish a decent sleep routine.
- Set your phone screen to black-and-white instead of color.
- Hide social media apps (at the very least, keep them on page 2 of your phone screen).
The changes outlined above are nudges: Instead of restricting your smartphone use outright, they gently guide you away from a default of endless scrolling, partly by changing your smartphone environment to make it less appealing. These changes are minor and easy to implement, and each can help smartphone use and improve quality of life.
Every year, smartphones and their apps get better at grabbing our attention. They become more slick, more intuitive, more powerful — and often more potentially addictive.
If your smartphone use is getting in the way of your life, taking the SAS and implementing a few “nudges” may go a long way to improving your quality of life.
Relevant reading
Mayo Clinic on Healthy Aging
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