A colleague of mine recently wrote:
An increasing number of observers suggest that the obsessive use of smartphones and social media that most people seem to suffer from makes them feel anxious and depressed. The argument has been developed in detail by Jonathan Haidt in his 2024 book “The Anxious Generation” to explain the mental health crisis among adolescents and young people. This is leading an increasing number of governments to ban smartphones in schools.
However … our paper … the “techno-social dilemma,” … argued that the problem is more general, affecting older generations as well. A new study, now for the first time, provides solid experimental evidence for that statement. Here is how I describe it in the updated version of the Human Energy paper:
Digital technologies appear to produce anxiety and depression both directly, by flooding people with stress-inducing, mentally exhausting, and incoherent stimuli, and indirectly, by distracting them from performing the activities that their body and mind need to develop a healthy balance, a coherent worldview, and the capability to manage real-world challenges.
This negative impact has recently been confirmed by a randomized, controlled, crossover trial (Castelo et al., 2025). The smartphone-using participants in this experiment were randomly divided in two matched groups, one of which had an app installed that blocked Internet access on their smartphone. (They could still use it to phone or consult the Internet via their computers.) After two weeks of this regime, the group with reduced digital access scored significantly better than the other group (and than their own initial scores) on measures of subjective well-being, anxiety, depression, and attention.
Remarkably, the improvement in mental health produced by this simple access reduction was larger than the meta-analytic effect of antidepressants, and as large as the one of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the most effective psychotherapeutic intervention against depression. The following factors were found to contribute to the better mood of the Internet-reduced participants: greater sense of social connectedness, better self-control, longer sleep, more time spent in the off-line world (e.g. exercising, socializing or experiencing nature), and less time spent consuming media content (Castelo et al., 2025).
Comment: I’m unsure what to make of the above, but I thought it worthy of discussion.
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- Castelo, N., Kushlev, K., Ward, A. F., Esterman, M., & Reiner, P. B. (2025). Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being. PNAS Nexus, 4(2), pgaf017. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf017
- Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press.
- Heylighen, F., & Beigi, S. (2023). Anxiety, Depression and Despair in the Information Age: The Techno-Social Dilemma. Anxiety, Depression and Despair in the Information Age, 2023. https://researchportal.vub.be/files/109723848/Techno_social_dilemma.pdf
Although I have done no research, I have thought excessive smart phone usage can lead to something like addiction. I do not have or use smart phone. For me, not having such device is one of my IMPs: an interest, motive and preference. Perhaps addiction is too strong a term? How about obsessive compulsive disorder, then? BUT, and this is a big but, there may be a thin line between OCD, smart phone junkiehood, and overt addiction? I think that is right, or, nearly so. We have become an anti-social society, while tech companies are an ever-increasing source of wealth. This leads towards ethics and morality arguments, doesn’t it—making the issue a matter for philosophy? I think so.
I have a flip phone. Don’t want my attention taken from me.
We are aware that social media and selected news feed is capable of shaping our perceptions of reality.
We also have studies showing that regular use of the internet can shorten our ability for long periods of focused concentration. We are literally training ourselves to suffer from attention deficit disorder.
Dr. Messerly, your having just a flip phone is a very wise decision.
I guess to provide an example of my point.
I forgot to mention that I agree with Paul.
Cell-phone usage for many seems to be an addiction.