Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on Dec. 12, 2025. Click here for that audio.
This story is part of our mental health series. Find out more here.
For many parents, keeping their child’s screen time low is a high priority. But that concern often doesn’t extend to adults; the average American spends around five hours per day on their phone, studies show.
All of that scrolling, texting and posting can take a toll on your mental health and release stress hormones. The human mind has always been able to take in and process a lot of information. But dependence on smartphones can lead to an overload, says Larry Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University Dominguez Hills.
“One of the problems is the smartphone, in particular, offers you so much from just your pocket that it’s very distracting,” Rosen said, “and it doesn’t give you time to process information that you really need to process.”
5 questions with Larry Rosen
What does spending too much time on your phone do to your body and mind?
“ So we started talking about addiction. And I wanna throw in another term, which is obsession. Obsession is an anxiety-based system. So in your brain and body, you have chemicals all over the place.
“One of the areas that you have chemicals is called the adrenal gland. And anytime that you get stressed at all, that’s because the adrenal gland has dumped some chemicals into your brain, and the one that everybody knows is called cortisol.
“What happens to people — this is not just kids, this is everybody — you do a task on your phone. You message somebody, you go on social media, whatever your poison is. Then you’re done, and you come back and do something else. But while you’re doing that something else, the cortisol is dripping in there. It’s indicating that you’re anxious.”
If our phones are causing us stress, why do we continue to use them?
“What happens is we feel compelled. We feel obsessed with keeping up with things, and we don’t want to miss out on something, because a lot of social activities that you might want to be involved in are on, say, TikTok.
“So, this chemical cortisol in larger and larger quantities makes you feel anxious, and it’s the same kind of anxiety as if you were gonna get up and speak to an audience. Your palms sweat. Your pits sweat. Your stomach has butterflies, and you just feel weird. You just feel uncomfortable. That’s the cortisol working.”
How can we reduce our screen time?
“I’ve developed something called a tech break. Typically, what we do is if we’re working, for example, if I’m typing or writing something, my phone will be there and it’ll be right next to me because we never let our phone get very far away from us. So, the first thing you do, I want you to shut down all of your websites that are there. Flick away any apps that you don’t need. Set your phone to ring in 15 minutes. Turn it upside down and put it right in front of you.
“Putting it upside down in front of us on silent, it sends a message to our brain: ‘Hey, adrenal gland, you don’t need to worry about cortisol because right now you’re gonna get to talk to me in 15 minutes.’
“And then you keep repeating this. So after 15 minutes dings, you give yourself a flexible one, two minutes. Not too much more to look at anything that’s irrelevant to what you’re doing. Check your phone, check your messages, whatever, and then you do it 15 minutes again. Now because you’ve done 15 minutes, go to 20. Now go to 25.”
What can you do when you start to get that craving to use your phone during the technology break?
“The only way it works is if you practice this. And what it does is it allows you to take control of your technology. Because right now the technology’s controlling us.”
Should we be trying to separate ourselves collectively from this technology?
“ I don’t think we have to separate ourselves from the technology. I think awareness is critical, and the first part of awareness is looking at that screen time data and going, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t realize I was on so many hours. What can I cut back on?’
“So, what you have to do is recognize that it’s gonna be uncomfortable for a while. But as long as you stick with it and do those tech breaks where you get to look at your phone every 15 to 30 minutes, you’re gonna feel like, ‘Oh, okay. I’m in good shape. I can focus for 30 minutes, talk to my spouse, watch a movie, whatever. It’s not gonna make me crazy.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
____
Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Grace Griffin also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR