How much is too much? How to navigate the right amount of smartphone usage.

Rachel Tinker
Oct 21, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Dec 2, 2024

In our digital age, smartphones have become an integral part of daily life, offering convenience and connectivity like never before. Although one can acknowledge some benefits, scientific evidence reveals its negative impact on our wellbeing and weakened ability to encode and retain information. One phenomenon known as the “google effect” is impacting long term memory, learning and attention span (Sparrow and Wegner, 2011).

For some, being offline is a seldom occurrence, with mindless usage reflecting that we are often ‘tuning out’ rather than focusing our attention on the present moment and functioning optimally.

Are you spending more time than you'd like mindlessly scrolling?

It is possible to spend so much time mindlessly scrolling that being late to work, school, social engagements or staying up late into the night can become a frequent pattern.

When it is too much?

Everyone's smartphone usage is different and each and every person unique with their own level of self-control, self awareness, beliefs and values, habitual patterns and relationship to their smartphone device. According to the 2023 GSMA report, over half of the global population 54%, 4.3 billion people own a smartphone (GSMA’s annual State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2023) and the research is evolving in relation to it's negative effects on memory (Wilmer et al., 2017), behavioural and cognitive self-control (Fabio et al., 2022) and depression (Augner et al., 2023). A first step is to ask yourself if it's too much?

What can we do?

As an experienced Health and Wellness Coach with over a year of dedicated research for my Psychology Master’s Thesis focused on coaching strategies for addressing problematic smartphone usage, I believe the solution is straightforward: and it lies in learning how to develop mindful awareness to bring your attention to the present moment enabling you to explore your usage, control the context and act with intention. Coaching can offer a supportive platform to enable you to create solutions to adopt healthier digital habits.