Why putting down your phone might be the best thing you ever do.

I am attached to my phone to a truly embarrassing extent. 

Every second my brain has free, I'll find myself subconsciously reaching for that little box of nightmares. 

If I'm not listening to a podcast, I am either loading emails or just scrolling – endlessly. Threads, The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, watching people decorating novelty cakes on Instagram. The works. 

If I think about the years that I have lost to my phone and the many, many other ways that I could have spent that time productively (completing a PhD, reading books, having sex) I am invariably filled with a deep well of shame. 

But besides the shocking waves of guilt about wasted time, I have recently started to consider that maybe being on my phone all day just... isn't very good for my brain.

The thought was spurred on by a conversation that Clare Stephens led recently on Mamamia Out Loud, where she shared that she had gone on holiday to a place in Western Australia untouched by phone reception and as a result, had a series of small epiphanies about all the ways being disconnected could be really, really good for you.

Specifically, Clare spoke about how boredom is actually quite helpful for creativity. It was a thought that I had never really considered and instantly, again, I felt ashamed as she said it. But she was entirely right, of course – boredom can be an important tool.

Irish writer and winner of the Man Booker Prize Anne Enright wrote in The Guardian in 2020, "I wait for boredom because boredom, for me, is a very good sign. It is the beginning of my pleasure." 

Fiction writer Neil Gaiman has echoed this sentiment, saying that "You have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story."

But for those of us who may not be looking to write stories, there are bigger reasons to value boredom and the creativity that can come from it. 

Dr Philip Tam, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with significant experience treating internet and gaming addictions, told Mamamia that if we stop constantly reaching for phones to entertain our brains, we might find "quite surprising solutions to problems, creative inspiration, and even ideas that just come into our heads".

Dr Tam says that he believes strongly in the power of leaving phones alone long enough to become bored. 

"The history of creativity is full of people who have sat there by themselves, late at night, and wonderful ideas and creativity have come to them. 

"You might think that if they were just reaching for their phone or their device at that point, we might not have had those great flashes of inspiration for great songs or ideas."

So, aside from creativity, what other good can come from stopping the habit of reaching for our phones?

Your memory may improve. 

This one is slightly controversial because there are differing opinions about how much our memory is impaired when we outsource all of the things we have to remember to a phone. 

In one Guardian article, Professor Chris Bird (a neuroscience researcher from the University of Sussex) points out that humans have offloaded things we have to remember using tools like writing. But there does seem to be some overall consensus (as well as a lot of anecdotal reports) that smartphones are just making our memory worse. 

In the same article, Professor Oliver Hardt from the McGill University in Montreal, points out that stopping our brains from exercising memory will eventually make it worse, in a 'use it or lose it' way. 

Professor Hardt, while purely speaking speculatively, says that our overuse of phone functions like GPS mean that our brain function may start to diminish and "the cost of this might be an enormous increase in dementia". 

Dr Tam also refers to studies that show that reading comprehension, memory, and recall for articles read on screen is lesser than for the same articles printed on paper. 

In fact, the benefits of reading from paper are really reflected in the fact that most people, when they really want to dive into some text, will choose to read it on paper instead of screens. 

"University teachers and lecturers are now noticing that the younger generation is not able to retain what I call a deep, structural knowledge of things anymore, because they don't engage in deeper reading... There's actually increasing evidence that the actual way we read and process and understand complex knowledge is being affected," Dr Tam says. 

Your concentration will improve, too. 

A 2017 study found that smartphones, even when they're not in your hand – even if they're just in the same room as you – and even when they're turned off, can demand their users' attention.

This is known as the "brain drain" hypothesis and research shows that the mere presence of phones can reduce cognitive capacity, particularly for people who report that they can't get through a day without it. 

The researchers of this study suggested that "defined and protected periods of separation" from phones could allow people to perform better on tasks "not just by reducing interruptions but also by increasing available cognitive capacity". 

Watch: How to break your phone addiction. Article continues after video. 

Your self-esteem may get a boost. 

Research has shown repeatedly that the more time that people spend on Facebook and Instagram, the more likely they are to compare themselves to other people, and this comparison has been linked to lower self-esteem and higher social anxiety. 

The risks of social media use for mental health have also been shown in documents leaked from Facebook itself, which stated that the company (now known as Meta) knew that it was pushing young women in particular to potentially harmful content. 

One Instagram employee opened a fake account in 2021 that found that by suggesting they were a 13-year-old girl looking for diet tips, they were led to graphic content and recommendations to follow accounts titled things like "skinny binge". 

By spending less time on social media platforms such as Instagram, we are exposing ourselves less to content that can dramatically alter the way we assess and judge ourselves. 

Your relationships will get better. 

Recent studies have begun to explore how excessive phone use is negatively impacting our relationships. Increased awareness around how our time on the internet is coming at the cost of our real-world relationships has even resulted in the coinage of the term 'phubbing' i.e. snubbing people around you in favour of phones.

Phubbing has been found to indirectly impact depression through relationship and life satisfaction. 

Using your phone too much is linked with a decrease in marital satisfaction and partners report feeling stressed when their significant other chooses to engage with their phone instead of them.

Dr Tam says that he acknowledges the power of technology to keep us connected to one another across distances, which can be hugely beneficial (many of us are well-acquainted with this concept after the pandemic). But he also asserts that excessive phone use can have real impacts on face-to-face interactions. 

"We know from countless experiments and practical knowledge that you really can't beat that good old-fashioned face-to-face contact, eye contact, physical touch, and things that the world of devices really cannot replicate," he says. 

You already know this but... you will sleep better. 

Research has shown again and again that using phones before bed can affect sleep quality. 

Actively using your phone to text or use social media (as opposed to, say, listening to music or watching a TV show) has detrimental effects on sleep by stimulating your brain and delaying REM sleep. 

The blue light emitted by your phone can also affect your internal body clock (otherwise known as your circadian rhythm) and suppress levels of melatonin, the hormone responsible for controlling your sleep-wake cycle. 

Listen to No Filter discuss digital addictions below. Article continues after podcast. 

You could enter mindful states. 

Putting your phone away may also open up the possibility of mindfulness – that is, entering a state where your awareness is purely on the present moment.

By putting phones away, Dr Tam says we can actually "have a much deeper, richer understanding of your place in this amazing world that we inhabit.

"It's about sitting with your feelings in your environment and understanding the beauty and the richness and the wonder that's around you. And not having to use the filter or medium of your device to fully appreciate that."

You may be able to regulate your emotions better. 

Speaking of sitting in your feelings, I asked Dr Tam about my tendency to reach for my phone even more when I'm in heightened states of anxiety (that is, almost all time).

He explains that using phones to regulate our moods through distraction is a fairly pervasive problem and may drastically reduce our tolerance for negative emotions. While humans have long had access to movies, music, or video games to support them during highly emotional periods, we now have access to near-infinite and powerful sources of stimulation. 

"We often go to the internet to make us feel better quickly, to get a quick hit or a quick fix. But that's not dealing with the underlying problem of why we might be feeling anxious or even a bit down or depressed," Dr Tam says. 

Dr Tam adds that a lot of clinicians are concerned about how overreliance on phones to regulate emotions could mean that people are unable to feel grounded or emotionally stable without them. 

One 2022 study of young children found that when devices like smartphones and tablets were used to calm upset kids, there was an associated increase in emotional dysregulation, particularly in boys. 

"We're worried that this is actually potentially having a significant effect on our functioning as sensible, autonomous human beings, because we can not function without this ecosystem of friends, admirers, and connections around us... and I think that's a big worry," Dr Tam says. 

Nobody is suggesting that it's easy to kick a phone addiction by any means (although here are some tips that you might find helpful) but there's such a ridiculous list of benefits to trying. 

After speaking with Dr Tam, I spent the evening with my phone on charge, in a room as far as humanly possible away from me. 

I can still barely recall anything about what I did last night but hey, I'm sure all these benefits take time. 

Elfy Scott is an executive editor at Mamamia. 

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