Sometimes it seems like things are more stressful and more anxiety inducing today than ever before.
And they might be.
People have always had money issues. They’ve always had busy lives with parenting, work, and school. They’ve always, for better or worse, had traumas and upbringings that create anxiety.
Yet, if it feels like more people have anxiety and stress now than in the past, that may actually be true, and one of the main contributing factors is likely our smartphones.
We’re only now finding some of the many, many issues caused by smartphone use. Some have been explored extensively – for example, we know that people that view certain types of content on social media may develop eating disorders and depression.
But it’s not only what we’re doing on our phones that matters. In some cases, it’s literally the act of being on our phones at all.
How Smartphones are Contributing to Anxiety
Smartphones – even more so than TV, most computer use, and video games – is causing issues that are contributing directly to an increase in stress and anxiety, so much so that decreasing smartphone use dramatically may be one of the most important tasks a person can take to try to decrease their stress. That is because phone use is leading to issues such as:
- Digital Overload – Perhaps the most important and significant problem associated with smartphone use is digital overload. Our brains are simply not designed to handle or process the amount of digital content that we see in a phone. When we’re scrolling social media, we’re putting so much extra pressure and work on our brains that it causes it to overload, and that leads to a constant feeling of stress that may create short and long term anxiety. Paradoxically, because our brain is overloaded, we tend to feel more relaxed when scrolling. But behind the scenes, our overloaded minds are experiencing more and more stress.
- Checking Habits – Similarly, although we may not *feel* like we’re stressed when we’re doing this, our phones can provide us with this constant feeling of missing out. This results in frequent checking behavior and an almost-subconscious worry that we’re missing something important. Even though that stress may be mild, that constant added stress means that we’re starting form a higher stress baseline throughout the day.
- Staying Up/Getting Little Done – Phones also frequently take away from our productivity, hobbies, and self-care activities that we would be doing without our phones. For example, in the past, without phones, we may be more likely to go on walks when we’re bored. But with phones, our boredom typically takes place immobile on the couch. We may also find ourselves staying awake an extra 30 minutes on our phones and get less sleep than we did before. How we use our time tends to be worse for our mental health, as we’re replacing what was once self-care time with phone time.
- Phone Replacing People – Human beings are social animals. We require and benefit from social experiences. Studies have shown that humans live longer and are much happier when we have people in our lives that we can connect with. Phones allow us to connect with people easily from anywhere, but in-person time is far, far more valuable to our mental health than phone time, and yet we’re seeing people less because we can keep in touch with them via the phone instead.
All of these issues do not even include the activities that we’re doing on our phones, which can also be harmful to our mental health. For example, if we’re doom scrolling social media, or we’re comparing ourselves to the models we see on Instagram, or we’re frequently checking the news for bad updates, we’re also going to be causing ourselves more stress.
But, perhaps most importantly, even if every single activity we do on our phones is sunshine and rainbows, and we do not engage in a single stress-creating action, we STILL would be more anxious and more stressed simply because we’re using our phones as often as we are.
Reducing smart phone use will not cure anxiety, stress, or other mental health issues. But it is still one of the most important changes you can make, especially if you find that you’re spending hours on your phone every day. If you need additional support, please reach out today to speak with a therapist that can help you with your anxiety.