01/09/2025
Are you or your children addicted to screen time… read on
A recent study looked at what happens in the brain after people go without their smartphones for 72 hours. Researchers found that this short period of restriction sparked changes in areas of the brain linked to reward processing. These shifts were tied to the brain’s dopamine and serotonin systems, which play a big role in motivation and mood. Activity in the parietal cortex was also closely connected to feelings of craving, showing that smartphone restriction can directly influence the neural networks responsible for salience and reward.
If you’re trying to loosen the grip your phone has on you, here are a few simple steps that can help. Start by leaving your phone somewhere out of sight and out of reach for a few hours each day. Pay attention to the urge to pick it up when it comes—interrupting the habit little by little helps weaken it. And perhaps most importantly, notice whether constant scrolling is helping you avoid certain emotions. Instead of numbing them with screen time, find ways to face and process those feelings more directly.
