Why are more and more people these days finding it hard to concentrate? Why does it feel hard to get into a task, accomplish “deep work”, or sometimes even form a coherent thought? I find it ironic that we live in a day that more and more juice is concentrated than the people who drink it. The culprit of our fragmented minds? Phone over-use.
The average American picks up their phone 144 times a day, and uses it for an average of 4 and a half hours a day (1). I don’t know a single person who sits down and uses their phone for 4 straight hours, so where does that time come from? Moments throughout the whole day. I would argue that it would be better for someone to sit down and use their phone once a day for four hours straight than to have a habit that “shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life” (2). If the average person picks up their phone 144 times a day, and sleeps for 8 hours, then there’s 16 hours for those 144 times- which some quick math tells us that the average person picks up their phone about every 6 minutes. How deep can you get into a project if you are interrupted every 6 minutes? Can your brain get into a flow? Mine can’t.
In Harrison Bergeron, the “handicapper general” gives each person a “handicap” (weights to weigh down the athletic, masks for the beautiful, a radio emitting a brain wrenching, thought stopping screech into the ears of the intelligent, etc.) to prevent anyone from being better than anyone else, or reaching their full potential. Have Apple, Android, Meta, and Google not given the same “handicap” to us? Rather than physical weights or masks, phone use has given us the debilitating force of fragmentation. I’m not saying that phones are inherently bad or that we shouldn’t use them. Of course there are many useful, incredible things we can do with them! But I believe that they are only these good things if we prevent them from being a crutch, an escape, an impulse, and an addiction.
In a culture where productivity is praised, we are often sucked into the whirlwind by chasing the illusion of productivity. Googling symptoms, looking at things we “need” on Amazon, reading news articles, checking email, etc. are all good things to do, but are they the BEST? Or would they be more useful if they were consolidated into one 15-minute session rather than fragmenting our every hour? Even the urge to take pictures on my phone can distract me from fully living in the moment and just enjoying those glorious baby smiles! Do I still take pictures? Of course! I love pictures and enjoy them very much.
But now I have a lot less pictures (in a good way!) than I used to, and more cherished moments not sticking a phone between my face and my child’s.
One thing I began doing was leaving my phone at this cute little “home” I drew whenever I’m at home. (I really use it every day!) I traced my phone outline and made it look like a cozy place to put it. Now my phone is never lost, and serves me as a tool much better than it did before.
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When I want to use my phone, rather than use it right away, I write on a little paper next to it what I want to do. At the end of the day when I sit down to do some consolidated phone use, I do some of the things I wrote down. Some of them I don’t do because they don’t actually matter. The impulse to do all these things immediately on my phone has lessened over time, and I hope it continues to lessen. Another change I have made is to turn off all notifications, sounds, and buzzes, except for phone calls – which I have on full volume. This way, I know that my phone will never interrupt my thoughts, but that my messages will be there when I choose to go to those apps. I also don’t have to worry that I’m missing important calls because I know that I will hear the ring if someone calls me. I was shocked at how much I expected my phone to buzz, and how freeing it was to know that it wouldn’t.
Some uses of our phones aren’t just distracting – they are harmful. The main perpetrator is social media. The most harmful, brain altering forms of social media are reels, shorts, and tik toks. Any short video that loops, cuts off sound or picture abruptly, moves faster than life, is over in just a few seconds, or switches vantage points every couple seconds or less, is a main cause of “brain rot." Video and audio that cuts off right before finishing or employs these other tactics leaves our brains waiting for the finish while a new video has often already started. These videos actually addict our brains in the same way that drugs do (3).
The content of these videos may be as unassuming as baking, cleaning, or arranging flowers. While content does matter and of course explicit filters should be turned on, even the most innocent subjects are harmful when curated in a way that fragments and addicts the brain. Awareness is key, and realizing that content creators are exploiting our brain chemistry and psychology can give us the power to turn off any video that makes us feel like we can’t put it down. Sometimes, awareness is not enough and we need to set pre-meditated boundaries for ourselves. I like to use the “Screen Time” feature on the iPhone to track my phone use and set time limits on certain apps.
Another terrifying use of this knowledge is employed by creators of children’s shows. Shows like Paw Patrol and Cocomelon use many of the same tactics to grasp our children’s attention and get them begging for more. These shows are advertised as “engaging” but really they are dis- engaging the child’s brain. They are sowing the seeds of addiction and portraying a hyper-reality so fast and colorful that real life is no longer interesting enough to keep kids’ attention. These shows change vantage points less than every four seconds, use over-stimulating colors, and even overlap audios to create a hyper-reality to pull children in. If these techniques are harmful for adults with fully formed brains, imagine how much worse it is for children, whose brains are forming. I encourage all parents to look at the quantity and quality of their children’s screen time. See this list of less stimulating children’s shows for ideas.
I also advocate for adults to take a look at their own social media consumption. I find that within two minutes of checking Facebook or Instagram a day, I can see everyone who is getting married, had a baby, graduated, or moved. After that, it is just advertisements and content curated to keep my attention so that more advertisements can pass by my eyes, molding me and my time into a product to sell to companies that will pay. I limit watching reels, shorts, or tik toks, and am acutely aware when a video I’m watching starts to loop, change too fast, or has any other over-stimulating quality.
Intentional living takes time to regularly disengage from media and engage our brains -- forcing ourselves to think, create, generate, and develop our own ideas. It takes periods of concentration. At first, pulling away from media is hard. As an addiction or habit, phone use is really hard to stay away from if we don’t replace it with something else. Find a hobby you enjoy that you can look forward to. Don’t just do what you’ve always said you like, but experiment with different things until you find what you like and is relaxing to you now at this stage of your life. Lately I’ve been choosing to write and play the piano.
One of the hardest times to avoid phone use can be when in the bathroom or waiting for something – anything, really! Next time you go to the bathroom, wait in the car, or stand in a line, embrace boredom! Resist the urge to “check the time” or anything else on your phone. To a Christian, the little apple with a bite out of it might as well be a symbol of temptation (4). Look up, look around, and breathe! Express gratitude for where you are and the people around you.
Life is too short to willingly divide it into hardly usable chunks! If you have children at home, you already know how fractured your time can feel when taking care of multiple people at a time who all need lots of help. Don’t fracture your time further by making your phone a priority. Use your phone on your terms, when you need it. Put yourself in control, take responsibility, and don’t be a slave to addiction, no matter how simple it may be. Next time you drink a glass of juice, resist the urge to look at your phone too and just savor the flavor. Say yes to a fulfilling, concentrated life!
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1. Bazen, Alexus, and Kirsten Schmitt. “Cell Phone Statistics 2025 | ConsumerAffairs®.” Consumer Affairs, 20 March 2025, https://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/cell-phone-statistics.html. Accessed 28 April 2025.
2. Newport, Cal. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2019.
3. Structural and functional correlates of smartphone addiction. Addictive Behaviors. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460319313802?via%3Dihub. Accessed 28 April 2025
4. Ubbenga, Julia. Declutter your Heart and your Home. Zondervan Books, 2025.
Love it. All so true. Thanks for sharing this. I do find myself reaching for my phone. I do enjoy the family group chat and calls. Those are all fun and I look forward to them. I am not a social media person so it is mainly the news and sports stuff that I see. I will watch All Creatures Great and Small or some other good movies on the train sometimes but we all need to pick up our phone much less.
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