How to get off your phone, once and for all

New research suggests turning your smartphone into a dumb phone is good for you (but, also, a huge pain)

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7 min read

I have a confession. I have never used screen time limits on my phone.

I don’t know what has stopped me. Maybe some sense that, given that this is my entire job, I should be able to function with limits. Maybe too much awareness of the mixed research on their efficacy. Maybe laziness.

Well, I am happy to report that a new study is out that finally convinced me to take the plunge.

We love a mix of research and practical guidance here at Techno Sapiens, so that’s what we’ll do today. First, an overview of the findings. Then, step-by-step guidance on how to make it work for you.

Research > juice cleanses

In recent years, a small body of studies have accumulated on “digital detoxes.” I do not love the term “detox” because it reminds me of juice cleanses [yikes!],¹ but the basic idea of these studies is to have participants eliminate or reduce their smartphone or social media use for some period of time, and then measure whether their well-being improves.

Findings across these studies have been a bit mixed (see this meta-analysis). This is, in part, because the methodology varies widely. Some studies have participants eliminate smartphones completely. Others focus on only one app (e.g., Facebook or Instagram). Some set time limits (e.g., less than an hour a day), and others do not allow any use. In some studies, the “detox” lasts for a month. In others, it lasts a couple days.

So, what’s up with this new study?

Blocking the Internet is effective (but hard)

The study is called Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being. Here are the details:

• Researchers recruited 467 participants through an online research pool² for a four-week experiment

• Participants were randomly assigned to use an app called Freedom to block the Internet from their smartphones (including all apps), effectively turning them into “dumb phones” that could only make calls and text. They could still use computers/laptops normally.

• Half the participants did this for the first two weeks (the intervention group), and the other half for the second two weeks (the “wait list control” group).

• At the beginning, middle, and end of the study, participants answered questions about their well-being (positive emotions, life satisfaction), mental health (anxiety, depression), focus/attention, and how they were spending their time. They also did a computer task to measure attention abilities more objectively.

• After two weeks, the Internet-blockers reported improved mental health, higher well-being, and better attention. Effects on mental health and well-being were still significant two weeks later (after participants turned the Internet back on).

• Exploratory analyses showed a few potential causes of these effects: more time spent in the “offline” world (reading, socializing, being in nature), better sleep, feeling more socially connected, and a greater sense of self-control.

In sum: two weeks of turning one’s smartphone into a dumb phone seems to improve well-being.

Was this a good study?

In general, yes. There’s a lot to like about this study! It’s overall high-quality, with all procedures pre-registered (i.e., the scientific version of a “pinky promise”),³ a thoughtful design, and the ability to check actual compliance through phones’ screen time reports.

And yet, there was one major limitation. Actually getting participants to do the smartphone-into-dumb phone intervention was hard. Of the original 467 participants, only 266 went on to even set up the Freedom app, and only 119 (!) stuck with it for at least 10 of the 14 days.

So, in the end, we’re talking about a (relatively small) sample of participants who were clearly motivated to reduce their smartphone use. Placebo effects in this group may be powerful, and we can’t rule them out because there’s no active control group (e.g., a group who got some other intervention that they’d realistically believe would help with smartphone use).

So, for scientific purposes, these results certainly might not generalize to everyone. It’s risky to suggest the findings prove that blocking the Internet from phones will causally contribute to better mental health.⁴

But for my purposes—as a human who is motivated to reduce her smartphone use—they’re pretty good! And maybe that’s true for you, too.

If nothing else, they convinced me to try the intervention for myself. Here’s how it went.

Test #1: Blocking the Internet

To do this, I downloaded the Freedom app, and toggled on the “Block all internet on device” setting.

Let’s cut to the chase. If I had been in this study, I would have been one of the ~75% of participants who were non-compliant. I found it extremely difficult to block Internet access entirely from my phone. I attempted it for a day, and it went…badly.

Here are a few of the reasons I overrode the setting and hacked back into my trusty handheld Internet:

• Look up driving directions to a doctor’s appointment for my son⁵

• Check in for said appointment (using their app) after arriving at the office

• Look up the weather

• Look up what time a local market closed to see whether I could make it there in time to pick up dinner

• Check in at the YMCA (using their app) to exercise

• Listen to a podcast while exercising

• Airplay an episode of Bluey to our TV, to watch with my kids before bed

• Check the video monitor in my child’s bedroom

But here’s the thing: to me, these feel like very reasonable and life-improving uses of my smartphone. Perhaps you disagree, but I do not feel I am in danger of overusing the YMCA check-in app.⁶ A more targeted approach to screen time limits feels reasonable and more sustainable.

Indeed, the researchers seem to agree, as they suggest: “Our intervention blocks all mobile Internet access, which likely has both benefits and costs for well-being. More targeted blocks may therefore be even more effective…Such interventions may also be easier for people to adhere to in their daily lives, potentially further boosting any positive effects.”

Test #2: A more targeted approach

For this approach, I relied instead on the Techno Sapiens patented “Mindful Approach to Your Phone” formula.⁷ The basic idea: Figure out exactly what you want to change about your smartphone use and why, and then take steps to implement it.

For me, the biggest offenders are Instagram and email, on which I find myself refreshing mindlessly and spending more time than I’d like. For you, it could be anything: your news app, TikTok, the NYT Games app, etc.

So, how can you block those biggest offenders? Here are the two methods I’m testing.

iPhone Screen Time App

These options are free, though, in my opinion, less intuitive.

First, using a setting called “Downtime”:

• Go to Settings

• Select “Screen Time”

• Select “Always Allowed”

• Add desired apps to your “Allowed apps” list. These are the apps you’ll be able to access, even when you’ve turned on “Downtime.” Everything else will be blocked.

• Go back, and select “Downtime”

• You can then turn Downtime on immediately, or set it on a schedule.

Yes, these are screenshots from my personal phone. And yes, that is the app for “16 Handles” frozen yogurt shop. Please withhold your judgement.

As far as I can tell, there is not a great way to completely block individual apps (apart from the Downtime approach above), but you can set time limits on particular apps. Just make sure you set the limits lower than you’d think.

• Go to Settings

• Select “App Limits”

• Select “Add Limit”

• Select the app you want to limit

• Choose the amount of time

Note: to set limits and block apps on Android devices, use the Digital Wellbeing app and follow these instructions.

Freedom App

Note that Freedom is free to download and use, but if you’d like to set up a session longer than 2 hours, or schedule sessions in advance, it costs $39.99 per year.

Here’s how to set it up:

• Download Freedom

• Go to “Blocklists”

• Select “Add new Blocklist”

• Select the apps you would like to block, and press “Continue”

• Add any websites you would like to block, too

• Give your Blocklist a name and select “Save Blocklist”

• Go to “Start Session”

• Select the Blocklist you want to use, and how long you want the block to last

• Select “Start the Session”

(Randomized controlled) trial and error

This new study is a reminder that managing our smartphone use is often about finding the balance of what’s ideal and what’s practical. What appealed to me originally about the study was its seeming simplicity: just block the Internet from your device, and you’ll be happier! But based on the study’s very low compliance rates, and my personal experience, things are rarely so simple.

Ultimately, for me, the most valuable takeaway from this research was not the data, but rather, the inspiration to try something new. To experiment, for myself, to find what worked for me—even if that turned out to be, simply, a little more YMCA check-in app, and a little less Instagram.

I hope it can do the same for you.

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A quick survey

What did you think of this week’s Techno Sapiens? Your feedback helps me make this better. Thanks!

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1. I know that many people love a good juice cleanse, but they are not for me because: (1) they scare me a little, and (2) there is little to no evidence supporting their proposed benefits, and some research suggesting risks. I am, however, in favor of the small cafe in my town whose business is built almost entirely on their juice cleanse programs, but who also makes an incredible chocolate zucchini muffin. If juice cleanse profits are keeping that muffin around, please, carry on.

2. FYI an “online research pool” is (sadly) not a fun body of water where people go to chat about randomized controlled trials while drinking piña coladas. It is a website where people sign up to participate in studies. A common one, and the one used in this study, is prolific.co.

3. As a reminder from this post—which actually made its way into The Washington Post a couple months ago (!)—“pre-registration” is a research practice where scientists make public their plans for studies, including all planned analyses, before actually doing them. The idea is to prevent after-the-fact changes to methods or analyses in order to get significant results. This generally (though not always) results in higher-quality research.

4. At one point, the study write-up compares the effect sizes on sustained attention to “the same magnitude as 10 years of age-related decline” and on depression symptoms to “larger than the meta-analytic effects of antidepressants”—which, okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

5. I also quadruple-checked that my son had an appointment before leaving because a few weeks ago, I arrived to discover there was no appointment scheduled (likely because I put the wrong date into my calendar). After taking the afternoon off work, skipping my son’s afternoon nap, and driving 40 minutes both directions, I did manage not to cry, but just barely. My son, on the other hand, got to watch Puss in Boots on the waiting room TV and had the time of his life.

6. Somewhere, someone out there is lying awake all hours of the night, repeatedly refreshing the barcode on their YMCA app, just trying to check in over and over again.

7. This approach is not patented.