We can have a love-hate relationship with our smartphones, and it’s easy to vilify them. Dr. Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP, a psychologist with Veritas Psychology, agrees that they have replaced important everyday habits, but she doesn’t consider smartphones “bad.” In fact, they have a place in our lives.
“As phones have gotten smarter, they have given us incredible access to other people, information, directions, emergency support and entertainment,” she tells Parade. “The issue is that something that is incredibly useful also has consequences. We should always ask ourselves the question about why we use it. The moment anything becomes an automatic or thoughtless response, we become more beholden to it than it is to us.”
In other words, smartphone use—just reaching for it—has become a ritual, and it’s usurped other habits that benefit us, like actually paying attention to our friends and loved ones (“technoference” in relationships is real). However, Dr. MacBride says it’s important to be careful when we talk about how smartphones affect the brain.
“Some people hear this and start worrying about changes that are out of their control,” she explains.
However, Dr. MacBride says that smartphones retrain our attention more than they “rewire our brains,” at least based on our current understanding. Still, they’re causing us to miss out on serious benefits we once got from simple, mundane daily tasks. Ahead, she reveals the everyday habit smartphones quietly replaced and how to inch closer to intentional digital minimalism.
Related: A Productivity Expert Says This Is What Everyone Gets Wrong About the Eisenhower Matrix
The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: What Smartphones Erased
According to psychologist Dr. MacBride, we’re missing out on the many benefits of boredom because of constant smartphone use.
She says notifications offer quick dopamine hits (rewards), often called “the dopamine loop” on social media. But she cautions that mind wandering benefits us, even if we struggle with silence.
The ‘Slot Machine’ in Your Pocket: Why We Can’t Tolerate Boredom Anymore
There’s a psychological reason why we often choose our smartphone over “sitting in silence,” usually without even thinking about it. Dr. MacBride shares that our brains are designed to learn from repetition and reward.
“The changes that we undergo are a product of repeatedly responding to a reward—in this case, a notification,” she says. “We find that phones, or rather the entertainment distraction opportunities on them, create a dopamine hit—reward chemical—which feels really good.”
Sound familiar, like something you might play in Vegas?
“If the device in our pocket is a reward system, then we can start thinking of it as not so different than a slot machine,” the psychologist confirms. “The variable interval reinforcement schedule, which is the technical term for what’s happening here, is the strongest reinforcement that humans experience.”
Basically, we can’t predict how often we’ll experience the reward, but that uncertainty is a crucial part of the thrill.
“This means we might check our phone and there’s nothing interesting, or maybe you missed a text,” she states. “The uncertainty of that brings you back time and time again.”
But it’s more than the dopamine bump we get from the reward. Dr. MacBride points out that humans don’t tolerate boredom well.
“A smartphone allows us to alleviate that state by switching tasks and creating something novel with very little effort,” she tells Parade. “Over time, this becomes part of the reward cycle that has very real consequences.”
You may have read about the “psychology of smartphone addiction,” but that’s not a clinical term. Also, not everyone is “addicted” to smartphones or social media.
“Researchers are using the term ‘problematic smartphone use’ because there’s still a debate about when this particular issue crosses into something that could be clinically defined as a behavioral addiction,” Dr. MacBride explains. “This is also why social media is being asked to be more thoughtful about use among children and teens.”
But she says people of any age—herself included—can fall into a trap of checking their phones to avoid boredom.
Related: I’m an Organizational Psychologist—This Is the ‘Shutdown’ Ritual I Swear by Every Night
Assess Your Digital Reflexes: The Habit Check
“Triggers” gets used a lot these days. Dr. MacBride shares that the real definition of a trigger is “a cue that begins a response.”
“Repeatedly using your phone in a particular situation and doing this repeatedly, over time, begins to cue the phone use behavior,” she explains.
Some common cues—or triggers— that can prompt you to check your phone include:
Waiting in line Waiting for an appointment Riding in an elevator Eating alone Going to the bathroom A show or sports game gets too slow Going to bed Coping with sleep issues Experiencing anxiety Boredom Hearing the ding of your phoneIt’s hard to overcome these triggers.
“Telling yourself that you are going to use the phone less doesn’t work particularly well,” Dr. MacBride says. “In my experience, this is not a specific enough goal or intention, so it becomes hard to change the habit effectively when you haven’t noticed where the behavior begins.”
The Hidden Cost of Constant Distraction: Why We Need Boredom
Yes, there are benefits of boredom, even if it doesn’t feel great, according to psychologists like Dr. MacBride.
“Boredom may feel uncomfortable in the moment, and being chronically bored isn’t something that we should want for ourselves, but occasionally it can be quite good for us,” she explains. “Boredom can allow our mind to wander.”
And there are many mind-wandering benefits to consider before reaching for your phone.
“In this state, we allow thoughts and ideas that maybe don’t have an obvious connection to bump into each other,” she continues.
It can help you solve creative problems, for instance. Unfortunately, Dr. MacBride says that constant interruptions and distractions compound over time.
“It’s not just a few seconds that it takes for you to check the notification,” she notes. “It’s also the cost of frequently ‘shifting sets,’ a cognitive psychology term. This term is used to describe moving your attention from one thing to another.”
This shift takes cognitive effort and time. Add that to the time it takes to check a notification, and it multiplies.
“It would be like trying to read a book while someone taps you on the shoulder occasionally,” she tells Parade. “Even if that interruption is brief, it breaks up the quality of your attention, and it takes a while to settle back into where you were interrupted. This is especially true when you’re trying to work on a task or learn something.”
Related: The One Hobby Neurologists and Psychologists Both Recommend After Retirement
3 Simple Ways To Reclaim Your ‘In-Between’ Moments
Dr. MacBride isn’t calling for people to ditch their smartphones entirely, but she is a fan of digital minimalism.
“Digital minimalism is the idea that we start to make deliberate decisions about which technologies add value to our lives,” she explains. “We begin paring down apps and notifications and platforms that compete for our attention and focus on those that match our core values. It’s not necessarily about getting rid of technology.”
Instead, she likes that digital minimalism centers “moving away from automatic and mindlessness and shifting to intentional use.”
1. Choose your phone use carefully
Dr. MacBride says it’s important to be specific, discreet and intentional about when you leave your phone in your pocket or bag. For instance, you might keep your phone in your pocket during an elevator ride or stow it away during dinner with a friend.
“Don’t try to make big, broad and non-specific changes,” she shares. “Those are harder to enact, and we often find ways to work around those ‘rules.'”
When you’re having screen-free time, have a plan.
“Look around and notice your surroundings a little deeper,” she suggests. “Notice the people nearby. Notice the thought you’re having, even if that thought is ‘I’m bored.’ Give yourself the 90 seconds to notice this experience before trying to change that feeling.”
2. Create friction
We’ve made it incredibly easy to use our phones, so Dr. MacBride suggests making it harder.
“When notifications pop up on your phone, we have made it very easy to know that there is a reward waiting,” she says. “Turning off the notification creates a point of friction between knowing there is new information in an app, which helps us delay the reward.”
She doesn’t recommend relying on willpower alone. It’s a trap.
“Behavior change starts with clear identity—who am I?—and adequate processes—why am I doing this?—to help you reach your goal more efficiently,” the psychologist states.
3. Practice makes progress
Dr. MacBride suggests short, discreet periods of “doing nothing” in which you intentionally avoid picking up your phone. Perhaps you bring your attention to your porch as you sip coffee or take a 30-second work break to look out the window, rather than your phone.
“The goal isn’t to stop doing something,” she explains. “The goal is to stop immediately filling the empty space with electronic stimulation. Remind yourself that feeling bored or restless is OK.”
You don’t need to judge yourself or get rid of it. Just observe it, Dr. MacBride says.
“When we participate in this feeling, we often experience the urge to change it,” she states. “Observation allows us to notice without the need to change it.”
Up Next:
Related: When Did We Stop Borrowing Things From Our Neighbors? Psychologist Weighs In
Sources:
Dr. Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP, is a psychologist with Veritas Psychology.Hence then, the article about the everyday habit smartphones quietly replaced and why we miss it more than we realized psychologist explains was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The Everyday Habit Smartphones Quietly Replaced—And Why We Miss It More Than We Realized, Psychologist Explains )
Also on site :
- Jon Stewart Uses Nathan Fielder’s ‘You Can See Everything’ Trailer to Troll Donald Trump and His ‘Human Printer’ Aide
- Starbucks’ New High-Protein Snack Pack Is Made for the Midday Slump
- Die Universität von Bengasi wird nach elf Jahren wiedereröffnet - ein historischer Meilenstein, bei dem drei Guinness-Weltrekorde gebrochen wurden