by Clarissa Kuhn
Clarissa, can you send me the pictures from the Zach Bryan concert?” my mom said to me from across the living room. What should have been a simple and quick task to complete led to a 2 hour spiral on my phone. I grabbed my phone with the specific intention of sending a few pictures, but ultimately resulted in me looking through my whole camera roll, scrolling on Instagram to see what pictures would match my feed, posting and archiving pictures to finally post later, stalking myself on all social media platforms, deleting videos and posts, and unadding people I’d intended to before now. All of a sudden a simple two second task of sending a picture turns into hours of mindless
scrolling and distractions.
My screen time bothers me. I don’t like seeing the number of hours my phone has counted, exposing how long I’ve spent on TikTok and Instagram each week. I always tend to have a peak in screen time at night following a rabbit hole of TikTok videos, rather than doing any actual sleeping. Other programs, such as Snapchat, feel more justifiable as the focus of those apps is communicating with friends and other real people. The next highest timed use of my phone is for video calls and texts with friends and family. This time spent on my phone feels far more valuable and worthwhile to me and I would not consider it a waste of time. Although I am right in line with the average person’s screentime of around seven hours a day, I find myself using my phone constantly throughout the day whether it’s between classes, while laying in bed, or walking around campus.
I spend most of the time on my phone mindlessly consuming content and getting invested in situations that are often far away from me and have no effect on me. However, in contrast to this, so much of my time is spent keeping in touch with the people I love. I don’t know what I would do without my phone, but I do know that I need to spend less time scrolling.
To determine how I can decrease the amount of time spent on my phone, I looked at patterns in my usage to change my habits. Social media platforms are the most time consuming apps on my phone. The National Institute of Health found “evidence from a variety of cross-sectional, longitudinal and empirical studies implicat[ing] smartphone and social media use in the increase in mental distress, self-injurious behaviour and suicidality among youth,” (AbiJaoude et al). While the mental distress experienced by others can stem for multiple different reasons, mine is primarily stress about school and work after wasting time on my phone instead of getting those tasks done first. The habit of getting home and scrolling on TikTok instead of doing homework has caused me to pull many all-nighters to finish work that didn’t fit into my schedule earlier in the day. While I always manage to get everything done, the stress of this routine and the physical tiredness that I feel afterwards is not worth it. Social media also causes me to spend a lot of time fabricating how I am perceived. While I originally enjoyed planning out my Instagram pictures for simply my own satisfaction, that enjoyment is now heavily influenced by what other people will think–often people that in reality, I wouldn’t ask for advice or even really care about their opinion. This habit not only affects my own self image but can make others see me in ways that are not actually true to me.
While I have grown to recognize my habits, recognition is not equivalent to change–only action is. After seeing how much time I spend on my phone and analyzing what this time seriously contributes or detracts from my life it is clear to me I must change my phone usage. My goal is to cut down the amount of time spent on social media from an average of three hours per day to maximum two hours per day. Eventually, I would like to get it down to an hour. My overall goal for total phone usage is to get that screentime below five hours per day. By slowly decreasing my time on my phone and actively monitoring how much time is spent on certain apps these goals are attainable and will actually last. I believe that lowering screentime will contribute to more productivity and attentiveness in my day-to-day activities as well as positively affecting my mood, school performance, and relationships. After examining my own habits and phone usage, I hope that other people will take a look at theirs too and consider how much of their time is worth being spent in digital spaces away from the world right in front of them.
Works Cited & Research Points
Abi-Jaoude et al. “Smartphones, social media use and Youth Mental Health.” Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 192, no. 6, 9 Feb. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.190434.
“Smartphones, social media use and Youth Mental Health.”
- Evidence from a variety of cross-sectional, longitudinal and empirical studies implicate smartphone and social media use in the increase in mental distress, self-injurious behaviour and suicidality among youth; there is a dose–response relationship, and the effects appear to be greatest among girls.
- Social media can affect adolescents’ self-view and interpersonal relationships through social comparison and negative interactions, including cyberbullying; moreover, social media content often involves normalization and even promotion of self-harm and suicidality among youth.
- High proportions of youth engage in heavy smartphone use and media multitasking, with resultant chronic sleep deprivation, and negative effects on cognitive control, academic performance and socioemotional functioning.
- Clinicians can work collaboratively with youth and their families, using open, nonjudgmental and developmentally appropriate approaches to reduce potential harms from social media and smartphone use, including education and practical problem-solving.
- There is a need for public awareness campaigns and social policy initiatives that promote nurturing home and school environments that foster resilience as youth navigate the challenges of adolescence in today’s world.