How to break up with your phone

Layla Johansen
Jun 28, 2023
5 min read

Updated: Jun 29, 2023

I rely on my phone too much. I use it to wake up in the morning, then before I've even got out of bed I'll read my messages, then I'll look at the Weather app to decide what to wear, then I need it to show me the best way to get where I want to go, then I'll use it to entertain me on my journey, listening to music, scrolling Instagram and looking up random thoughts that pop into my head (my latest was "how does WhatsApp make money" - answer: apparently through WhatsApp Business & WhatsApp Pay.) It's a lot of screen time!

There are some super interesting studies now though which show that we're becoming attached to our phones in the same way we are to family members and pets. We see them as an extension of ourselves. Being unexpectedly separated from them impacts our sense of self as well as our literal heart rate and blood pressure, and having them near us whilst we're trying to work or do tasks which require brain power makes our memory and our intelligence much worse.

I think being aware of both the physical and mental impact our phones are having on us is really important, so read on for some nuggets of wisdom from amazing studies!

THE FIRST EXPERIMENT

This study (Ward et al., 2017) took 520 smartphone users and split them into 3 groups:

Group 1 left their phones outside the testing lab
Group 2 left their phones in their pocket/bag so they were with them but out of sight
Group 3 left their phone facedown on their desk in the testing lab

All phones were on silent. Participants then completed 2 tasks which tested their memory and their intelligence. Afterwards, they filled in a questionnaire about their phone usage, how much they thought about their phone during the tasks, and whether they thought their phone placement impacted their performance etc.

Results

People who left their phone in the other room performed best
As awareness of their phone increased (i.e. seeing it on the desk), performance decreased
Having your phone on the desk but face down / turned off / on silent doesn't improve performance in the tests >>> it's the mere presence of the phone that's damaging
Most people said in the questionnaire that they did not think about their phone during the task at all >>> so even if people don't consciously think they're being distracted by their phone, its presence makes them perform worse
The more dependent people are on their phones in general, the more their performance suffers from their presence >>> therefore the more they could benefit from their absence!

THE SECOND EXPERIMENT

This study (Clayton, Leshner and Almond, 2015) put 41 iPhone users into 2 groups:

Group 1 had 5 minutes to complete a word search and they were allowed their phone next to them, and then they did another word search without it
Group 2 had 5 minutes to complete a word search and they were not allowed their phone with them, and then they did another word search but they were allowed their phone on them

Neither group were allowed to get up from the computer whilst they were doing the tests or use their phone. Both groups had their blood pressure and heart rate measured wirelessly before doing the first word search and then at minute 4 in both tests. After the word searches, participants completed questionnaires to assess the pleasantness & unpleasantness and their anxiety.

As Group 1 started their second word search, researchers told them their iPhones were interfering with the wireless blood pressure and heart rate monitors so they took them away and put them on loud, 4ft away so participants could see and hear them. At minute 3, researchers called their phones for 20 seconds. They then took blood pressure and heart rate readings at minute 4.

Group 2 had the same set up but in the opposite order.

Results

Blood pressure and heart rate were lowest when participants had their phone and highest when separated from it
Participants felt most anxious when they were separated from their phone and it was ringing
Participants felt most like themselves when they were with their phone
Feelings of unpleasantness were highest when separated from their phone
Performance in the word searches was worse when separated from their phone

This shows being unexpectedly separated from your iPhone causes psychological and physiological stress.

WHY DO THESE STUDIES MATTER

Studies have also shown that workers generally switch task every 3 minutes, and once we've been distracted by external stimuli (e.g. by just quickly checking Instagram or responding to that group WhatsApp) it can take 30 mins to get back to what we were doing (Gonzalez & Mark, 2004). That means we spend a long time distracted and not fulfilling our full potential.

In the case of the second study, it's the anxiety induced by being unexpectedly separated from the phone and the stress we feel at not being able to answer it that results in poor performance, not the distraction of the ringing. SO, if we could become less reliant on our phones and less attached to them, they would have less power over us. We'd feel less anxious and uncomfortable, we'd be more present and our cognitive performance would improve.

WHAT CAN WE DO

Start by being more aware of your phone usage - we often take it with us wherever we go by force of habit so try to be more conscious about when and where you use it
Play a fun game when you're on the Tube/bus and see how many people you can see not on their phone - be more like them, at least sometimes!
Consciously do activities without bringing your phone e.g. if you're watching a TV programme in the evening, leave your phone in another room for one episode
Stop taking your phone to the loo! Often we'll go from staring at our computer screen to staring at our phone screen whilst we're in the bathroom - give your eyes and brain a break
Have set hours in the day where you keep your phone elsewhere, think of them as your most productive 'power hours' e.g. if you WFH keep your phone in the bedroom from 9-11am or if you're in the office leave it in a locker / another area / a friend's bag
Move your most used app around and hide it from yourself e.g. I use Instagram a lot so my thumbs know where to find it without me thinking, so when I move it into a different folder I'm shocked by how instinctively my thumbs go to its old place and it shows me I'm only going on it out of habit

Although this isn't directly related to nutrition, our phone usage has a huge impact on our overall feeling of wellness (for want of a better word!) and how we spend our days. At the risk of sounding a million years old, if you think back to 10-12 years ago we were living in a totally different world of Blackberries and Motorola Razrs. It's scary to think how much our behaviour has changed in such a short space of time and how it may evolve over the next 10 years.

In the wise words of Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do....

Ponder on that whilst you enjoy a picture of me in the pre-iPhone times.