So, what would it be to go back in those days? Without scrolling to social media, no mobile shopping, no streaming shows or media on your phone?
Researchers measure three different results of well -being, mood and attention in the beginning, middle and end of a four -week study. While 91% of participants improve their results in at least one category, 71% report better mental health after the break than before, and 73% report better subjective well-being.
Participants completed a study often used by doctors to assess the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Includes questions such as: How often do you have little interest or pleasure to do things you usually enjoy in the past week? Participants’ answers indicated a significant mood lift.
One of the surprising discoveries is that the reduction of depressive symptoms was PAR – or even larger than the reductions documented in studies of people taking antidepressant drugs.
“The size of these effects is greater than we expected,” says the first author of the study, Noah CastleAssistant at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Of course, for some people, medicines and/or conversations are key to mental health management, and researchers do not suggest that less time on the Internet is a substitute for this type of care.
The internet interruption of their phones also improved the attention of participants, which is measured by a computer task. They followed images that alternated between mountain scenes and cities. Previous studies show that effectiveness tends to decrease with age, but to the surprise of researchers, after the internet, there was a significant impetus to the results. “The effects on attention were so big as the participants were 10 years older,” Castello says.
It is not clear how long the effect the effect of less time online would be, but this study confirms what it was Found in observation studies. “This is one of the first experiments that provides causal evidence that reducing the time spent on your phone has all these significant benefits,” Castello said.
When participants agreed to block the Internet on their phones, they were allowed to continue using laptops or iPad during work or at home, and may continue to use their phones for conversation or text. So, researchers were not sure if participants would exchange phones for another shape on the screen.
But, as it turns out, breaking the habit of scrolling into their phones has led to significant changes in the way they spent their time. And the interesting thing is that every day the break continued, the benefits have increased, almost as a positive feedback.
“It’s not that you stop using the Internet and magically just feel better,” Ward says. What happened is that people spend more time engaged in healthy behavior.
“People say they have spent more time in nature, more time in communication, more time, doing hobbies,” he explains. They also got more sleep and felt more socially related to other people.
“I’m not surprised by the findings,” says D -r Judith JosephPsychiatrist at the Medical Center at New York University Langone and author of High Functioning: Overcome the hidden depression and regain your joyS She says studies show that most people do not want to be connected to their devices.
“They know their phones are a problem, but they just can’t stop,” she says. And she says that when they start to deal with behaviors like those who see each other in the study – more exercises, time outdoors, good sleep, more social interactions – it is not surprising that they begin to feel better.
“People’s assistance to retrain their brain to extract joy from healthy activities there is an antidepressant,” she says, so she says that findings pointing to the reduction of symptoms of depression and anxiety make sense.
“If (people) see this improvement in joy in such a short period of time, then it gives us hope,” she says, adding that simple changes can be useful.
Try: Tips for scaling your own smartphone use
During the survey, many participants had to break the rules just to complete things their jobs or families require to do, such as turning on a card app to navigate the car or to get into the Zoom meeting from the phone them. This is a reminder of how dependent we are on our mobile devices.
It is almost impossible to reach a cold turkey, given the demands of our society. So what do you do if you want to try this? “If we are expected to be available at all times, then how do we just decide to break?” He asks Ward. This is a public struggle.
