104: How Smartphones Affect Mental Health: Anxiety, Depression, and Screen Time Explained

Your phone might be doing more than stealing time. It may be quietly taxing your mood, your attention, and the basic habits that keep you well. We found a fascinating research study that tested a simple but radical idea: block mobile internet access on a smartphone for two weeks while still letting people call and text, and then measure what changes in mental health, well-being, and focus. 

We walk through how the researchers designed the experiment with 467 adults, why this kind of randomized setup helps answer the causation question, and what they actually measured: depression, anxiety, social anxiety, life satisfaction, positive and negative mood, plus a real sustained attention task instead of just “I feel more focused.” Then we get into the headline-worthy outcomes, including the stat that about 91% of participants improved in at least one area and the surprising attention boost researchers estimated as roughly equivalent to reversing about ten years of age-related decline. 

We also dig into the “why” behind the results, because the point isn’t to demonize smartphones. When the constant portal to social media, news, email and scrolling disappears, many people naturally spend more time sleeping, moving their bodies, getting outside and seeing other humans in real life. We talk about who may benefit most, what the limitations are, and practical ways to test the idea without going extreme: deleting the stickiest apps, setting phone-free zones, and experimenting with computer-only access. If you want a simple starting point, we leave you with one challenge you can try this week. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels phone-tired, and leave a review with what boundary you’re trying first.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, welcome to your checkup. We are the patient education podcast where we bring conversations from the doctor's office to your ears. On this podcast, we try to bring medicine closer to its patients. I'm Ed Delesky, a family medicine doctor in the Philadelphia area.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

And I'm Colorupo.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I'm a nurse. And we are so excited you were able to join us here again today. Close to the unofficial, unofficial start of summer.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I thought it was the official, unofficial start of summer.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

The official, unofficial start of summer. One day removed from St. Patrick's Day. Maybe if you're listening to this on St. Patty's Day, happy St. Patrick's Day to you. Or as we're recording this, happy Ides of March. Sorry, Julius. Caesar, that is. Et tu brute. I wasn't planning on doing this, but beware the Ides of March. Um, you know, the Shakespearean play Julius Caesar, named for the aforementioned Roman ruler, met his untimely demise on this day several years ago. Several.

unknown 1:20

Several.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

According to Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

That's what he said.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

But we had a much better weekend than Julius Caesar.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I actually had like you've been waiting for this weekend since this weekend last year. Yeah. For one whole entire year.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, I really have been.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

You have lived 364 days. Days. Days for one.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I have. Yeah, probably. No, I don't want to start making comparisons, but I was very, very excited. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day like no other. No, neither of us have a lick of Irish in us. Nope. But nonetheless, we celebrated culture. And, you know, on that day, culture did become my costume because I wore a nice polyester suit. Nice shamrock polyester suit. Only the highest quality polyester. Look, I I love myself polyester. To really spit it out, we went to Brigantine and celebrated St. Patrick's Day in the town. And let me tell you, we had a day. It was the one of the busiest days we've had, maybe since the wedding. Or a travel day, perhaps.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Oh my god. Yeah, we did a lot yesterday. We were up early. We had a whole itinerary. We went to the gym as a family. And then we like bopped around to this little shop, had some coffee and a cookie.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Met Estherina.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

And then we took Ollie for a walk. We went for a walk as a family, a lot of family time on Saturday. And then we went to the parade, which I never participated in a St. Paddy's Day parade before. Well, not participated in, but spectated, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

And then we came back, then we went out to eat. Then we came back to the house. You had to don your garb.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And then we went out for the festivities.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Gosh, it was so fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And we were back before nine, which is even better.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Exactly how we want to cook it up. And listen to some fine tunes from local disc jockey Jack Fahy, who it could be anywhere. It could be a Saturday bazaar. It could be ice cream at Richmond's. He could be there spinning the discs, giving us the best music that he can. He seemed unimpressed with us, though.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, he actually didn't want anything to do with us. It's so true. Just kind of disappointing.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

We were like his biggest stands. We were out on the dance floor doing whatever, whatever. And we were like pointing at him, singing Backstreet Boys at the end of the night for the last song. And he was not pointing at him like I want it that way. Nothing. Not faced at all. But he probably gets a lot of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah. He probably had a long day too.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

He probably did. Then we got in some pictures. I guess what you call it is photo bombing, but I think it's much more elegant the way we do it. We search out a family photo happening. A long sought-after family photo.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Like people we do this for sport, actually.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Haven't seen each other in a long time. And we're looking. And if we're about 10 to 20 feet behind that photo, we're lining up. We are opposing American Gothic, the biggest smiles you can, and hoping that we can then find these people on the internet. And this actually happened. This happened for us because we had the same photographer, local photographer, Jack Fehey.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

He's a man of many talents.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

He is. He had like the DJ booth on autopilot, and then he went out and was just like whipping out the camera with his like mega lens. And it was just, look, I had a phenomenal time. I I think I hit Nirvana on the dance floor.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

I did. It was great. I contrary to what one may believe, wearing this type of loud polyester suit, I was slightly uncomfortable with that amount of attention. Um one would argue I was asking for it. But nonetheless, it ended up being a fantastic day. And looking forward to a good week ahead. Apparently, we're getting some like crazy wind tomorrow concerning people.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

That's what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

So if you're listening to this today, good luck in the wind later on today. And we're getting caught up with a lot of our shows. We are loving Masala Kitchen. We've gotten that like three times in the last six weeks.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah. We always get the same thing, and it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

It is good. Spicy MK chicken. It took me a long time to remember what MK meant. It stands for masala kitchen. Yeah, you probably clocked that in the first first time reading the menu.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

I did.

Dolphins Kidnapping Rumor And Toothbrush Chaos

SPEAKER_00 6:41

No, I just it took me four, five years. Five, four years. Four years. Pretty dull on the uh sharpness scale there. All right. Well, we um we have a nice little setup for you here today. We are um we have a nice episode. It's gonna be a standalone one. Um, thanks for bearing with us while we talked about the food pyramid. We thought that would go better, but yeah, you guys suck. No, well, just kidding. Just kidding. Kisses. Turns out that people weren't terribly interested in this, or at least the the audience that we've cultivated for ourselves. We do think you'll be interested in this interesting new study that I found. But before we get to that, I do want to hold some space for, you know, a what do they call it? Uh no, PRN is as needed in medicine. Um, what do you what is it called when someone works like on per diem or per diem segment? Nikki's corner.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Okay. Have you heard about that guy in Florida and the dolphins? Gerald. No. I don't know where he was found, but he claims that he was kidnapped by dolphins. He's like an engineer, like an underwater engineer, whatever. Really? There's like a name for it, and I forget, and my phone's plugged in, so like I'm not gonna go get it. But he claims that he was kidnapped by dolphins. The head dolphin name is Gerald, and they kidnapped him for three days underwater, and they forced him to build this like little um like town underwater or like city. Atlantis? Underwater, and then allegedly, this is all rumor, it's like obviously fake, but allegedly there were like what makes you say that because people aren't getting kidnapped by dolphins and forced to make underwater cities. But then the rumor going around was that he found, um, or like when he was in the hospital, doctors found like uh, I don't know, whatever substance in his lungs that was consistent with being in like the deep, deep ocean, but then he had no other lung damage or like head trauma. And that's the the story circulating around online. But it's really funny because people in the comments are like, you know what? I don't know why, but I feel like I believe this guy.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

This is this is the one I'm gonna choose to believe. Wow. Did you hear about that? No, I had no clue about that. I now I feel this is look, people the entertainment industry, shout out Oscars, can try to come up with stories to make us amused and entertained. But this is our world. This is real. Yeah, there are people out here kidnapped by dolphins. Dolphins named Gerald. If you've heard this story, please do reach out to us because I I don't know whether you just told me this out of your imagination or if this is a no, it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Look it up. You're gonna start getting served it now on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Who is this lead dolphin, Gerald? His name is Gerald. So did this person go to the regular floors in the hospital or the psychiatric ward?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Probably the psych unit.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Let's not make fun of people that aren't us.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Only people who claim to get kidnapped by dolphins.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yeah, only those people. Wow. Well, that isn't that terribly interesting. Gerald.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

It is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Thank you for that part of Nikki's corner. Did you like it? I loved it. Yeah. No, that was great. I this is funny. I I hope to never get kidnapped by dolphins. It's a miracle he survived. I would take it that he's not amphibious.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Probably not. Most humans are not.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And maybe wasn't prepared with scuba equipment. Or maybe he was, if he was down there and this is part of his occupation.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, apparently Gerald made like an air bubble. Oh. And that's how he could breathe.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Wow. No, it's nice of him to keep keep him alive. You know, I guess he could have perished pretty quickly without oxygen. Huh. Wow. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

You're welcome. Was that Gary? I think it was. Gary's been doing some crazy stuff around here.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, rest in peace to toothbrush.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, Eddie's toothbrush over the last like week randomly would turn on. Like we have electric toothbrushes and it would randomly turn on in the middle of the night and we hear like this weird buzzing. And then on Friday, when I was getting ready for work, coincidentally, while I was brushing my teeth, it went on and like scared the crap out of me.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Can you address it by its proper name? Like the proper noun.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Your toothbrush?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

No, no, no. Just toothbrush.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

So then I'm brushing my teeth and toothbrush turns on.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And toothbrush would not turn off. Oh. So then I just actually like wrapped it in a towel because it was like making too much noise on the counter. And I was like, all right, it's like probably gonna die soon. Toothbrush did not die soon, and it just kept going for like a solid 20 minutes. And I was like, well, I can't just have this thing here buzzing. Ollie's gonna be afraid. So then I um had a burial for it on a random trash can or in a random trash can on Pine Street. Oh, really? That was probably buzzing for hours, but you know, people have done worse.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, people have definitely done worse. You know, toothbrush was good. Uh toothbrush served for a good time, not a long time. Um, went into the cavities of my mouth. I don't have cavities though. That's what they say, that's what they tell me. And helped me, helped keep my teeth clean. And we recently learned that toothpaste is just a vessel for fluoride. We learned that from a dentist, that's a close personal dentist that we have. And I hope that toothbrush rests in peace. I do.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

I think he is.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

And toothbrush became senile and towards the end woke us up several times in the night turning on. And whether it be toothbrush or Gary, well, we may never know. But the first time it actually did happen, I got up and I like searched around the house and I was like, who turned on my who turned on toothbrush? Who did this? So who knows? But rest in peace toothbrush. Rest in peace.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

You've been replaced.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Toothbrush with this new one that apparently has a 14-day battery life. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Great. Looking forward to using that tonight. And clean out this rancid mouth.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Anyway. I mean, you've been brushing your teeth, but you you've had a temporary replacement.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, temporary we can't personify a temporary toothbrush. So we just we've been anyway. Why don't we dive in? Nick, what are we gonna talk about today?

The Two-Week No-Internet Study Setup

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Today we're talking about a fun little study you found about what happens when you well, yeah. Yeah, right? Yep. What happens when you block the internet on your phone for two weeks?

Results For Mood Well-Being And Focus

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, so you know, I think everyone probably has one within reach right now, your smartphone. But more specifically, we're going to talk about what might happen to your mental health, your attention, and your overall well-being if you suddenly lost access to the internet on that phone. And before you panic, we are not talking about throwing your phone in a lake. But researchers have recently asked an interesting question: what would happen if we simply blocked the internet on people's smartphones for two weeks? They could still call people, they could still text, but no social media, no news, no email, no scrolling, just a phone that worked like phones used to. And what happened next actually was pretty fascinating. So when why researchers studied this? Most of us probably feel, and this is relatable, at least a little bit, that we spend too much time on our phones. I mean, think about if you're waiting in line, you're sitting in a waiting room, standing in an elevator. What do we do? You pull out your phone, and researchers have estimated that people check their phones over a hundred times per day. I actually think some phones are able to calculate this type of stuff. But here's the tricky part. For years, scientists have been trying to understand how smartphones affect things like depression, anxiety, attention, overall happiness. And the problem is that a lot of studies only show correlation. We actually did a not so distant episode about this, and it was tricky because we didn't have a lot of, you know, causal data, just correlation. So this means that we see things, we see that two things happen together, but we don't know if one causes the other. So, for example, if someone spends more time on social media and also reports more anxiety, did the phone cause the anxiety? Or were people who were already anxious simply using their phones more? It's actually a really hard question to answer. So that's why they designed an experiment to try to test it more directly. So, what ended up happening in the study is that researchers recruited about 467 adults for the study itself. They installed an app on participants' smartphones that blocked all mobile internet access. And the important part is that people could still make phone calls, send text messages, and use the internet on their computers. So the phone wasn't gone entirely, but it wasn't just a constant portal to the internet anymore. Participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group had their internet blocked for the first two weeks, and the other group kept their normal phones for about two weeks, and then had their internet blocked afterwards. And it's actually a nice design because eventually everyone gets involved. And during these weeks, researchers measured several different things. So they looked at three main areas. The first was mental health. They looked at things like depression, anxiety, anger, and social anxiety. The second, they looked at overall well-being. So things like life satisfaction or positive mood or negative mood. And third, which I thought was really interesting, they measured attention. They had participants complete a computerized task designed to measure sustained attention, which is basically your ability to stay focused over time. So this wasn't just people saying, I feel more focused. They actually looked at it, which is great. So now the results is where things get really interesting. And I've been talking to people about this since we made this episode and have been including it in some counseling about phones. When researchers looked at the data, they found that about 91% of participants improved in at least one measured area. That's one way to present the information if you want like a headline grabby type thing. It's pretty remarkable though. Mental health scores improved, people reported less depression, less anxiety, and less social anxiety. Overall well-being improved, and people had a greater life satisfaction and more positive mood scores. But one of the most surprising findings had to do with attention. Participants actually performed better on sustained attention tests after the two-week period without mobile internet access on their phone. And the improvement was large enough that the researchers estimated it was roughly equivalent to reversing about 10 years of age-related decline in attention. I am not exactly sure how they do that, but they did mention it in their study. So that of course doesn't mean you suddenly became 10 years younger, but it does suggest that constant connectivity may be taking a toll on our ability to focus. So we dive deeper into why did this happen. The researchers also wanted to understand exactly that. So they looked at how participants were spending their time during these two weeks. And they found several interesting changes. People were spending more time socializing in person, they were getting more physical activity, spending more time outside. Often they were sleeping better, and overall consuming less digital media. So removing the internet from the phone didn't just remove something negative, it actually created a space for other behaviors that we spend a lot of time talking here on the show. And one of the biggest insights from the study is that phones may not only distract us, but they legitimately may be crowding out healthier behaviors that we could be doing for ourselves. If every spare moment gets filled with scrolling, that's time that might otherwise have gone to maybe talking to someone, going for a walk, getting outside, or just letting your mind rest. And so it was an interesting finding is that people who benefited this people who benefited the most tended to have a higher fear of missing out, sometimes called FOMO, and more symptoms related to ADHD, reminding you that those are the people who may have benefited more. So this actually makes a lot of sense because people already feel pulled towards their phones, may experience the biggest relief when that constant pull disappears. So this is exciting, this is cool, but any part of science does come with some limitations if we're going to be balanced and informative on the show. So the first intervention was pretty extreme. Most people. People aren't going to block the internet on their phone completely for two weeks. And though some people already might want to after hearing this episode and considering that study. The second is that the study only lasted about two weeks. So we don't really know what would happen over months or years. And the third is that participants actively volunteered for the study, which means they may have already been more motivated to change their phone habits than the average person. But even with these limitations, the results are really thought-provoking. So, what can we do with this? The study doesn't mean that smartphones are bad and we understand people do things for a reason. Maybe you're learning things. Maybe you're happy when you're on them for a period of time because you're entertained. Phones are incredibly useful tools. But it may be worth asking whether constant access to the internet on our phones is always helping us. Here are a few simple ideas that people try sometimes. One option is removing certain apps from your phone, especially the ones that tend to pull you in the most. And maybe considering only accessing them from a computer. Another option is creating a phone-free zone. One example might be at the dinner table, during walks, or in the bedroom before sleep. And even a small change like that can really make a big difference in how much time we start spending staring at a screen. Like we said, phones are incredible tools. We can be so productive and accomplish so much on them. But many of the apps on them are also designed to capture our attention for as long as possible. And studies like this suggest that even a short break from that constant stream of notifications and information might give our brains something they don't get very often anymore. A little bit of quiet space to focus. So here's something you could consider. A tasty tip, if you will. It's simple. Try taking one walk this week without your phone. No podcasts, no music, no scrolling, just a walk. And you might be surprised how different it feels. I've got big takeaways from this. As you can tell, I have been very excited, and I've already started incorporating this into a lot of adolescent visits. Um, I usually don't out them and say, like, how long do you spend on your phone? Because I get them looking up at the sky. They kind of are trying to add hours in their head, and I'm like, I know I'm going to hear a very big number. So in the last episode we did, we talked about the three hot zones of what of like unhealthy phone use. But at that time, you and I had kind of explored that there wasn't a lot of causative data or study to be had. But now we do. And I I think this one's really valuable. And it's an easy thing to explain to someone and be like, yeah, they turned off phones for two weeks and well, it turned off the internet access for two weeks and see what happens. And look, nothing bad happened. Like it was all good stuff. I think the 91% of people had at least one thing get better. I mean, that's a nice way to propose it, I guess, because like it there's something for everyone here. But it may not be like the magic bullet, not the blender, but the thing that like fixes things for people. But I think for people with anxiety or people who are worried about like attention and concentration, like that link in there super important.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Do you think this will change anything for you?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

In what way?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Well maybe I can be like more conscious to be on my phone less.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

I personally I I feel this. Like I was even like I was telling you maybe like an hour ago. I was like, I'm uh I've just been on my phone so much. I was like working and trying to do stuff, but like I was like, I'm just this is so much. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I don't like it.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I feel anxious.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Anxious.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

But all in all, easy thing. I guess it's also so many people coming in with concerns of attention problems, and everyone, not everyone, many people are concerned about ADHD. I know it's a topic we haven't touched on yet, and we're preparing slowly to have on a guest who specializes in ADHD and children, and we're very excited to have her on at some point soon. And I think this is a really good angle of just easy at-home mental health stuff to try. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It's not a medicine, it's not therapy, it's not a paid service. It's literally less of something that I think people just assume is like okay and normal at home. Like everyone's okay. It's everywhere. It is everywhere. And maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe it doesn't have to be. So thank you for coming back to another episode of Your Checkup. Hopefully, you were able to learn something for yourself, a loved one, or a neighbor. You can find us on Threads. You can send us an email. Please feel free to reach out. We love communicating with our audience, close and abroad. We are very grateful that recently we hit a few milestones. We hit a hundred episodes published, which has been a nice reflection on the work we're doing here, and we're having fun along the way. And we recently hit, even more recently, 20,000 downloads across our entire time. And so I'm very happy about that. And soon enough, we're coming up on two years. As a quick review to share some cool things with our audience, I wanted to share a few locations from afar that we pretty consistently get listens from. So if you happen to be from any one of these countries, just know that we know and we see you and appreciate you coming back every week for your checkup. First is the United States. Thank you for everyone. First is the United States. Thank you from everyone in our home country listening. We very much appreciate your support and listenership. There's also Canada. Thank you, people from Canada, coming to support us and listening to the show. And Nikki, can you listen? Can you list a couple else, a couple other ones off?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Let's see. This is going to be new to me. We have the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, which is listed as a country. Is Hong Kong a country?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

I think it's the app.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

I is it like how when they um they like said Pluto wasn't a planet anymore, but like is Hong Kong a country now? Um I know it's not. Okay. Anyway, the Philippines, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, Ireland, Spain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, France. Wait, really?

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah. I don't know and share it with you, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

India, Sweden, Brazil, Singapore, Puerto Rico, Finland, Nigeria, Italy, Indonesia, Mongolia, Japan. Oh my goodness. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Any more?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

There's a lot more. Ethiopia, Egypt, Qatar, Nepal, Croatia, South Korea, Peru, Portugal. Oh, a couple in Jamaica. Oh. Bahamas, Greece, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Norway, Kenya.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

And to that point, we are just so grateful that anyone from around the world may tune in and listen to us two knuckleheads talk about health in what we try to make a more approachable, balanced, educational way. So thank you so many times over, and hopefully, most importantly, stay healthy, my friends. Until next time, I'm Ed Delesky.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I'm Nicola Rufo.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Thank you, and goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

This information may provide a brief overview of diagnosis, treatment, and medications. It's not exhaustive and is a tool to help you understand potential options about your health. It doesn't cover all details about conditions, treatments, or medications for a specific person. This is not medical advice or an attempt to substitute medical advice. You should contact a healthcare provider for personalized guidance based on your unique circumstances. We explicitly disclaim any liability relating to the information given or its use. This content doesn't endorse any treatments or medications for a specific patient. Always talk to your healthcare provider for a complete information tailored to you. In short, I'm not your doctor. I am not your nurse. And make sure you go get your own checkup with your own personal doctor.