Your phone might hold the secret of eternal youth, and not because you can spend eternity scrolling through ever life hack and skincare routine you could think of.
If anything, all that time spent staring at a screen could be rapidly aging your brain.
While it won’t iron out your blemishes and wrinkles, turning off your phone’s internet could give you the attention span of someone 10 years younger.
That’s according to a study of 400 adults who downloaded an app blocking internet access on their smartphones, while still allowing calls and texts.
It forced them to spend time doing something other than doom scrolling – like going outside, touching grass, exercising, even socialising in person.
Screen time nearly halved – dropping from five hours and 14 minutes, to two hours and 14 minutes in one group. The results were remarkable.
Not only could people pay attention to a single subject for longer, their mental improved to – more than would be expected on two weeks of antidepressants.
‘Even those who did not fully comply with the intervention experienced significant, though more modest, improvements’, the team from Canada’s University of British Columbia said.
‘These findings suggest that constant connection to the online world comes at a cost, since psychological functioning improves when this connection is reduced.’
Published in the PNAS Nexus journal, the participants were split into two groups.
One downloaded the ‘Freedom App’ for the first two weeks and removed it for the second two. The other group did it in reverse.
Both saw their screen time plummet – even more so in the first group, although their usage did rebound to 15% below the pre-study level once the app was removed.
Could this mean those scheming to ban phones from schools, or whack legal age limits on social media, have a point? We might not like it, but it’s possible they do.
The Canadian researchers said: ‘Despite the many benefits mobile internet offers, reducing the constant connection to the digital world can have large positive effects.’
More than 100,000 people in the UK have signed a so-called ‘Parent Pact’ started by the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign.
As the name suggested, it was launched six months ago as a rallying cry for parents to delay giving their kids smartphones until they turn 14.
It says: ‘Every child deserves the chance to learn and grow free from toxic and addictive algorithms.’
With the backing of ex-footballer Jamie Redknapp, actor Benedict Cumberbatch and singer Paloma Faith, it also suggests holding off on social media until kids are 16.
That age would be in line with Ireland, Spain and Australia, which have all banned under-16s from social media.
‘We want our kids to have a childhood’, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said after lawmakers approved the ban last year.
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