3 simple switches for a healthier relationship with your phone
How do you feel about your phone use? For most adults, at least, it’s complicated. Ofcom's Online Nation report - the most up to date picture of the UK's digital dispositions - shows that we spend an average of four hours and 20 minutes online each day – around a quarter of our waking lives. In fact, it’s worse among women. Every day, we spend 33 more minutes glued to a screen than men do (as if our IRL to-do lists weren’t already long enough).
Here’s the twist, though. We’re not handwringing about it. In fact, when the regulator asked us what impact our digital lives have on us, the majority (56%) said the benefits of being on social media outweighed the risks, up from 52% in 2022.
The scientific picture is complex too. For example, a study published at the end of last year in the Journal of Medical Internet Research suggested that how we use our phones matters at least as much as how long we use them for. Adults who frequently post on social media, it found, are at higher risk of developing mental health problems than those who just passively scroll through it. “This highlights the need for awareness about how different social media activities can affect mental wellbeing,” said lead author, Dr Ruth Plackett. “Evidence shows that social media use can have both positive and negative effects on our mental health, and more research is needed.”
This nuance is reflected in other research. When a Swiss team conducted a study of 160 working people, for example, they found that 50% would be categorized as “at-risk users” or “problematic users” according to cyber addiction standards. But negative impacts like stress, were not really related to the amount of time spent by participants on their phone. Instead, they correlated with their experience of dependency and compulsion.
So if you aren’t ready, or simply aren’t inclined, to radically alter your relationships with your phone, how can you take better control over it?
Switch on greyscale
Clicking the greyscale option in your phone’s settings will immediately drain all the colour from your screen, rendering your icons, apps and more in varying shades of grey instead.
Why might it help? “I read that individuals are drawn to bright, saturated colors and thought the color itself might contribute to an individual’s technology use,” says J. Holte, psychology professor at the University of Cincinnati who has researched the function. “If you look at all top applications, they all use bright colors. My thinking was scrolling on Instagram probably isn’t going to be as much fun when in black and white.”
He was right, it seems. In one study, Holte’s team found that switching to grayscale contributed to a reduction of smartphone use by an average of 39 minutes per day. In another, the switch correlated to significant decrease in anxiety levels too.
Turn the brightness down
There’s a setting in your phone called ‘dark mode’. Use it, and your screen’s backdrops will switch from glaring white to midnight black, while your text shifts from black to white.
Why? Blue light waves can influence our bodies’ creation of melatonin and by extension our circadian rhythms and sleep patterns. They have also been linked to eye strain.
The jury, however, is still out, both on the degree to which the blue light usually emitted from your phone will actually impact on your sleep, and on whether switching to dark mode will change that.
In fact, a 2019 study published in Current Biology suggested that it’s not so much the color of the light as much as its intensity that affects our sleep. The world-renowned Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, recommends an even lower-tech solution than switching to dark mode: “Adjusting screen brightness and contrast settings to match ambient lighting conditions can reduce eye strain and fatigue.”
Try background sounds
We know we aren’t supposed to take your phone up to bed. Yet three-quarters of Britons (74%) do, according to a YouGov poll. If you’re among them – and especially if you sleep with a snorer, near a busy road or just have noisy neighbours - then this switch could be for you.
Buried in your iPhone settings, you’ll find a ‘background sounds’ option, that lets you choose from soothing noises including the ocean and rain.
In truth, these aren’t officially white noises, since to qualify as such a noise has to contains all frequencies of sound at the same volume (like static does). Sounds like soft rain are actually categorized as pink noise. They can, however, still help you to sleep if you are often woken by abrupt sounds in night. Some studies have shown brown noise (like white noise but with a lower, deeper quality... think heavy rain) to be good for tinnitus sufferers.
If, on the other hand you want to boost your productivity in the day, this setting might help too. A 2022 study from researchers at the University of Southern found that white noise played at 45 decibels resulted in “improved cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention, accuracy, and speed” as well as enhanced creativity.
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