Effects of Phone Addiction
Excessive reliance on mobile devices is becoming a significant issue, leading to strained relationships, reduced productivity, financial burdens, and mental health challenges. Understanding the effects of smartphone addiction is essential for helping yourself or a loved one facing problematic mobile phone use.
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Overall Effects of Phone Addiction
Because phones are a part of our daily lives, it can be easy for smartphone use to turn into overuse, eventually leading to addiction if the user isn’t careful.
Cellphone addiction can affect us mentally, physically, socially, and financially, as well as decrease our performance, productivity, and creativity.
Negative Effects of Phone Addiction on Mental Health
Phone addiction disrupts mental pathways and alters the way we think and feel. This altering of brain chemistry can lead to anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, sleep disturbances, and many other problems.
It can impair attention span and focus, causing reduced cognition. The addictive nature of smartphones begins to control our brain’s reward processing systems, creating a dependency on the dopamine release we receive from notifications and constant cellphone use.
Furthermore, those with phone addictions have been shown to have decreased grey matter in their brains. Grey matter is responsible for impulse control, decision-making, and emotional processing.
The brain structure of a phone addict has proven to be similar to those with other substance use disorders (SUDs) or drug addictions.
Negative Effects on Physical Health
Negative consequences from phone addiction don’t just impact a person’s mental well-being; excessive smartphone use and addiction can also cause an array of physical ailments.
For instance, excessive smartphone usage can lead to decreased physical activity. A sedentary lifestyle can be a precursor for health problems such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and many other physical ailments.
With poor impulse control, overeating is more common among phone addicts and, paired with low physical activity, can increase your risks even further.
Long periods of immobility while scrolling, gaming, online shopping, etc., can lead to muscle atrophy, headaches, eye strain, and neck, back, or wrist pain.
Less time outside also means less vitamin D absorption from sunlight, which may cause fatigue, mood changes, or depression. It can also further disrupt the body’s natural circadian rhythm, resulting in poor sleep quality and fatigue during the day.
Social Effects
Those who are addicted to their phones usually end up damaging real-life relationships by spending an excessive amount of time on their devices, making superficial online relationships, and end up neglecting those physically close to them.
Phone addiction can also decrease face-to-face communication, reducing meaningful social interactions and leading to isolation and loneliness.
Having a large online presence can also increase exposure to social media pressure and cyberbullying. Both can lead to low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy.
Additional Problematic Effects of Phone Addiction
A decreased capacity for focus and concentration reduces productivity, negatively affecting school and work performance. Hobbies and creativity can also suffer while all focus is on phones.
Phone addicts may also suffer financially from overspending on gaming, online shopping, gambling, or even social media apps. Low impulse control can also lead to dangerous behaviors such as checking notifications while driving.
Over time, this excessive phone use can develop into other behavioral addictions, like internet addiction and social media addiction, where the compulsion to stay connected overrides the person’s well-being.
Recognizing and addressing this dependency is crucial to prevent further negative impacts on the smartphone user’s life.
Long-Term Effects of Phone Addiction on Young People
The long-term effects of phone addiction on anyone are concerning, but the impact on young people is especially alarming.
While phone addiction can cause many negative changes and hinder cognition in grown adults, young brains may not form properly in the first place due to phone addiction and cause long-term damage to mental, behavioral, social, and academic development.
Impact on Brain Development
Crucial brain development occurs in young people with a concentration on rapid growth of grey matter, followed by maturation. Grey matter is responsible for memory, impulse control, information processing, decision-making, muscle control, and sensory perception.
During this critical time, the brain is learning what to focus on and eliminating unused connections to be more efficient.
Suppose excessive phone use begins before this development takes place. In that case, the brain learns to focus on that and bypasses connections for important skills like problem-solving, stress management, and emotional regulation.
Improperly developed brains lacking crucial life skills can lead to countless mental health challenges and an entire generation of anxious, distracted, and depressed individuals.
Behavioral Changes
Young people with excessive phone use often experience decreased emotional regulation, increased aggression, irritability, or mood swings. They tend to withdraw, preferring online communications over face-to-face interactions and solidifying social isolation and loneliness.
Poor impulse control and decision-making skills can also further increase risky behavior in teens and young adults.
Reduced Outdoor Time
Children and teens with phone addictions spend significantly less time outdoors and tend to prioritize phone use over physical activity. Decreased physical activity and outdoor play can have negative health effects, such as weakened motor skills, poor physical fitness, and obesity.
Spending time outdoors in nature and breathing fresh air have been shown to improve overall mental health and reduce stress and anxiety.
How Does Phone Addiction Happen?
Because phones are designed to be addictive, a phone addiction can happen to anyone. However, certain risk factors can increase the likelihood of some developing these addictive behaviors over others.
The most common risk factors include:
- Use of smartphones starting at a young age
- Struggling with an underlying mental health condition and relying on excessive smartphone use to cope
How Is Phone Addiction Treated?
Like many addictions, phone addiction can be caused by underlying mental health disorders. Treating these mental health issues may inadvertently treat your phone addiction as well.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has shown to be a successful method and may sometimes be used in congruence with medications or other types of therapy (e.g., couples counseling or group therapy). Learn more about treatment for phone addiction here (link).
Find Help for Phone Addiction
The long-term effects of phone addiction are damaging to us as individuals, our relationships with others, and our society as a whole. If you or a loved one is suffering from a phone addiction, help and treatment are available.
For information about counselors and support options in your area, check out the SAMHSA online treatment locator or call 1-800-662-4357.
FAQs About the Effects of Phone Addiction
Can phone addiction damage a relationship?
Yes. Those addicted to their phones are typically distracted and unfocused on the people around them. They tend to obsess over digital connections but neglect the loved ones close to them. Due to this distraction and neglect, relationships begin to deteriorate over time.
How do I detox from social media?
A great way to detox from social media is by setting a specific amount of time to either log out of social media accounts or delete social media accounts altogether to attempt to break your addiction.
After successfully completing your detox, you can consider allocating small amounts of time to social media by setting timers within your device, having “no phone” areas within your home or times throughout the day (e.g., at meal times and before bed), or downgrading your phone and only accessing social networking sites from a computer.
How does phone addiction impact sleep quality?
Excessive phone use can disrupt your sleep in several different ways. When a phone addiction develops, people are often unable to stop using their phones, scrolling, or gaming late into the night. They may even find themselves waking up to check for notifications.
Excessive screen time can disrupt normal sleep cycles and decrease sleep quality, leaving them exhausted in the morning and throughout the day.
Exposure to bright light late in the evening can interrupt our body’s normal circadian rhythm. Consider decreasing phone use before bed, wearing blue light glasses, or turning your phone into dark mode in the evening.
What are the long-term effects of phone addiction on adolescents?
During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex and limbic system, which are responsible for impulse control and reward processing, are still forming. Because of their immature brains, adolescents are more susceptible to becoming addicted to their phones.
When a phone addiction occurs, their brains do not develop properly, which can lead to long-term effects and mental health disorders such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, OCD, poor school/ work performance, social isolation, physical ailments, and many others.
How does excessive phone use affect the brain?
Excessive phone use can affect our brains in many ways. Phone addiction rewires the way we think, feel, and act by decreasing attention span, creating feelings of anxiety or irritability when away from our phones, and making us reliant on the dopamine hit we receive while using our phones.
Excessive phone use can also cause sleep deprivation, worsening all of these symptoms.
