Today, nearly every American — 91% — owns a cellphone that can access the internet, according to the Pew Research Center . In 2011, only about one-third did. Another study finds they average 5 hours and 16 minutes a day staring at small screens.
With that rapid infiltration has come widespread concern about the negative psychological effects of being chronically online. A 2022 Gallup Poll found that 58% of American smartphone users, including 80% of those under 30 years of age, worry they use their devices too much.
New research by Adrian Ward , associate professor of marketing at Texas McCombs, validates those worries and suggests a remedy. In a controlled experiment, he found that just two weeks of blocking mobile internet from smartphones improved three dimensions of psychological functioning: mental health, subjective well-being, and attention span.
"Smartphones have drastically changed our lives and behaviors over the past 15 years, but our basic human psychology remains the same," Ward says. "Our big question was, are we adapted to deal with constant connection to everything all the time? The data suggest that we are not."
Ward conducted the study with an interdisciplinary team of experts in psychology, psychiatry, and consumer behavior, including Noah Costelo of the University of Alberta, Kostadin Kushlev of Georgetown University, Michael Esterman of Boston University, and Peter Reiner of the University of British Columbia.
Blocking Browers and More
The researchers conducted a four-week randomized controlled trial in which 467 participants, average age 32, were asked to install an app on their smartphones. The app blocked all internet access, including browsers and social media, only allowing calls and text messages.
Participants could still access the internet through computers at home, work, and school, but they were no longer constantly connected to the online world.
To assess the effects of the intervention over time, participants were randomly split into two groups. One group activated the app for the first two weeks and then got internet access back. The other blocked the internet during the latter two weeks.
Using both self-reported assessments and objective computer-based tests, the researchers measured participants' psychological functioning at the beginning, middle, and end of the four weeks.
Overall, they found that blocking mobile internet for two weeks led to notable improvements in mental health, subjective well-being, and sustained attention.
- 91% of participants improved on at least one of the three outcomes.
- 71% of participants reported better mental health after the internet break than before it. The average degree of improvement in symptoms of depression was larger than that reported in multiple studies of antidepressant medications.
- Attention spans improved by an amount equivalent to reversing 10 years of age-related cognitive decline.
- The benefits of blocking mobile internet seem to increase over time. Experience-sampling data showed that people felt progressively better day by day during the intervention period.
More Time Offline
These effects on psychological functioning can be explained by how blocking the mobile internet affected participants' daily lives, Ward says. Rather than watching more TV or movies, they "increased time spent in the offline world. That's doing hobbies, talking to people face-to-face, or going out in nature. They got more sleep, felt more socially connected, and felt more in control of their own decisions."
For marketers, Ward says, the findings suggest a huge appetite among consumers for technologies that stimulate them less and thus help them reduce their time online. For example, a company might move to a subscription-based business model so users aren't bombarded with flashy ads begging for a click.
Employers might offer apps to help employees become happier and more productive by cutting back their mobile internet consumption, he says.
But he recommends giving workers the option whether to buy in. In the study, only 57% of participants followed through on installing the app, and only a quarter went the full two weeks offline.
"Maybe you put it to a vote, and people will choose to vote for it," says Ward. "The fact that 80% of people think they use their phones too much suggests that maybe they will."
" Blocking Mobile Internet on Smartphones Improves Sustained Attention, Mental Health, and Subjective Well-Being " is forthcoming in PNAS Nexus.
