Controversial opinion: Your smartphone is not addictive.
Confessional honesty: I wrote a book about getting on top of your social media and smartphone usage. I still get invited to teach on technology and screen time. I was obviously asked to write this article. So, I should be a smart, smartphone user – a time management ninja. Yet, the truth of the matter is that I still struggle with my phone. It is a complex relationship.
Cutting to the chase: I’d like to believe that my struggles with smartphones and social media are down to algorithms and addiction. I am simply the victim of a Silicon Valley strategy. If that were the case, my phone usage wouldn’t be my fault. It wouldn’t be my problem. I could blame someone else. I would simply be the victim.
But that is not the case.
Habits, not addictions
In his fascinating book Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time, Pete Etchells looks at the science behind screen time and human habits. Exploring studies, he shows that people do overuse social media and smartphones. That is simple to see. People really can spend hours scrolling through online content. Yet, the same could be said of reading books. People can get ‘addicted’ to a book and not be able to put it down. We’ve all heard of a child hiding a book under the duvet, or someone on holidays spending hours a day reading a novel in the sun.
These things are not real addictions. They are not psychiatric conditions that need medical intervention or medication. They are nothing like drug or alcohol addiction. Even if you think a child screaming as they have an iPad wrenched from their hand is a ‘dopamine withdrawal’ on a level with ‘cold turkey’ – it isn’t. Etchell brings helpful clarity when he explains that we should ‘reconsider our technology use in terms not of addiction but of habits.’
Habits and our heart
Our smartphone and social media usage is down to habits… and heart. We scroll and surf the net in a way that creates habits. It is just something we learn to do without thinking. It’s automatic but comes from the habits we have created. Picking up the phone first thing in the morning, scrolling when I am bored, letting notifications ping and draw me in, doom scrolling last thing at night. The more we do these things, the more we do them. They become habits.
The question is, why? Why do we create those habits? The answer to that is not going to be popular. Our habits are not created by algorithms or chemicals in the brain (even if there are chemical changes when we go online), but rather, by our heart. In our hearts, we are looking to be like God. We want to be omnipresent: WhatsApp makes us think we can be everywhere for everyone. We want to be omniscient: Google and Facebook fool us into thinking we can know everything about everyone. We are drawn to the smartphone and social media by the cravings of our hearts. They fill a void. They scratch an itch.
The compounding problem is that our heart forms our habits, and our habits form our heart. And that is why it feels like an addiction. We get drawn into screen time from a deep place but the problem is first and foremost a heart issue.
So, what is the answer?
Keystone habits
There are lots of ways you can get on top of your screen time. One is to create ‘keystone habits’. Or to put it another way, create big habits that affect little habits. You see, some habits have more consequences than others. They act like domino starters. Here are some keystone habits you can consider:
Turn off your notifications
Don’t let your phone invite you or interrupt you. Start to only look at your phone at predetermined times.
Ban your phone from your bedroom
Don’t let your screen be the first and last thing you look at. Replace it with the Bible and prayer.
Embrace boredom
Don’t feel the need to look at your phone when you have nothing to do. Look for opportunities to pray, share the gospel or just enjoy creation. Look up!
You may have noticed I’ve started talking about prayer and the Bible. That is because I believe that all lifestyle changes are primarily a work of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to change but he does that through self-control and strategy. We can, empowered by the Spirit, live self-controlled lives, and create strategies (like the ones above) to get on top of our habits, and therefore form our hearts in gospel-centred ways.
And so, to the actual topic of the article!
A screen sabbath
A great strategy is having a regular screen sabbath. That can be weekly (on the Lord’s Day perhaps), monthly or even once a term. Essentially, it is turning your phone off (and all social media access perhaps), for a 24-hour period. Or, if you are nervous about being ‘out of contact’ you can simply delete all your social media apps from your phone (and then add them again afterward).
I have no real biblical basis for this. It is simply a common sense idea. You see, a screen-free sabbath helps us do two things in tandem: reset our habits (it breaks the cycle of doing things repeatedly), and re-focuses our hearts. You’ll be amazed at how much more thinking time you have that day and, like fasting, it will give you prompts to pray. What should you pray when you have a pang for a ping? Ask the Lord to remind you that he is the only one who is omnipresent and omniscient and that finding our identity in him is enough.
Like me, you’ll probably still struggle with your phone. There is no silver bullet but, by being honest about our hearts, taking responsibility for our habits, and looking to God, we will slowly, but surely, take control of our screens.
