UNION SQUARE, Manhattan (PIX11) — Most smartphone users feel they’re on their devices too much and would like more time away from them, according to researchers who completed a study this month.
Their work was intended to gauge the effects of taking time out from smartphone use, and their monthlong study concluded the mental health benefits of smartphone fasting were surprisingly good.
The survey, carried out by researchers at Georgetown University, the Veterans Administration, the University of Alberta, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of British Columbia, recruited 467 people, ages 18 to 74, to forgo their smartphones for two-week periods over the course of a month.
Adrian Ward, a psychologist and professor at the University of Texas business school who was one of the primary researchers, said that while spending weeks off smartphones may sound austere, the study’s rules were not particularly strict.
“We didn’t block texting or phone calls,” he said in an interview, “so people could still talk to loved ones from anywhere at any time.”
“We didn’t tell people they couldn’t use the internet at home,” he continued. “You could still do anything the internet has, from a laptop or an iPad or a desktop.”
The intent was to find out only how much smartphone web engagement people could do without, as opposed to general internet accessibility.
It was meant to counter habits that various people who spoke with NewsNation affiliate PIX11 News in New York City’s Union Square said they have with their smartphones.
“I use it like 90 percent of the time,” said Terence Neal, who, like most of the people mentioned in this story, looked up from his device to talk with PIX11 News.
Paulina Aguilera said she is on her smartphone “maybe all the time.”
Johnny Velasquez had a similar description of his own smartphone use.
“It comes to the point that my eyes start hurting,” he said. “I [have to use] eyedrops.”
That kind of hyper-engagement is what researchers said they were curious to figure out whether or not, and in what ways, it would get disrupted.
Ward said the respondents’ surveys showed living without smartphones, even for a matter of weeks, took some getting used to.
“We also did hear from participants that the first couple of days of blocking the internet were tough,” the researcher said.
Back at Union Square, Sabina Gidaya was walking with her friend Valeria Andrews. Both said they’d had to go without phones for about a week in the past during camping trips.
“The first days were hard,” Giddy said, “and afterward, I just felt like I was living life.”
The smartphone fasting study got similar reactions from its participants, who also reported their mental health continued to improve after the first few days had passed.
In fact, they reported improvements in all three areas that were measured: mood, well-being and attention.
The first two categories, mood and well-being, were gauged through surveys that participants filled out over the course of their smartphone non-use. They reported their mood improving by 71% and their well-being improving by 73%.
Attention was gauged through exercises in which participants had to watch alternating images of city and country scenes displayed for extended lengths of time without losing focus.
Their attention levels grew measurably, resulting in 91% of all of the subjects improving in at least one of the areas studied.
One takeaway, Ward said, is that “it may take a little while to adjust, but as it turns out, we can do pretty much everything without [smartphones].”
Darlene Chevelle, who was reading a novel on her smartphone while walking down 14th Street at Union Square’s south end, said the research was relevant.
“I think that study is a good, good idea,” she said.
She was among a variety of people who said they liked what they heard about the research, even though they couldn’t go without their devices themselves for weeks at a time.
Ward said that lengthy, cold-turkey deprivation was not necessary and that, in fact, a majority of people who participated in the study were unable to finish.
Still, he said, “people who tried and failed actually saw benefits” in all of the areas measured.
He said that one of the biggest takeaways is that choosing to spend any extended time apart from a smartphone — whether it’s an hour or two, an evening, a full day or multiple days — is beneficial.
“Our research,” he said, “suggests that any sort of reduction is going to be positive for us.”
