5 people on their phone addictions
"I'm going to miss out on something," "It's a black hole, it'll suck you in fast," "I feel like it drains my critical thinking ability"
I gave up social media for Lent when I was 16, and then again the year after. By that time, I had Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. I was accustomed to keeping my phone so close to my face as I went to sleep so that, should whatever boy I was talking to (lol) text me back, the light would wake me up.
My reliance on my phone grew when I was 20 and my mother died. My phone—particularly social media—was a lifeline.
I used it to find confirmation that the grief-induced mental breakdown I was experiencing was normal. That I wasn’t the only person in the world to feel what I was feeling.
My reliance grew deeper yet when I started making and selling things, and deeper yet when I got more serious about being a published writer. Now, I would most definitely categorize my relationship to my phone as an addictive one.
I’m embarrassed and afraid of this truth, even though I know I’m far from alone in it; a recent survey found that over 43% of Americans report being addicted to their phones (when broken down by generation, that percentage jumps to 56% of Gen Zers and 55% of Millennials).
It’s not yet listed as a diagnosable addiction in the DSM-V, but most clinicians seem to think it should be.
In an effort to acknowledge this incredibly prevalent addiction (for reference, alcohol use disorder impacts just over 10% of Americans ages 12 years and older) that is also incredibly normalized, and, selfishly, to live in the not-aloneness, I spoke with five strangers (all who responded to my TikTok call for sources) who also identify with having a phone addiction.
Here’s what they have to say about how their addictions developed, how it impacts their lives, and how they’ve tried to break it. (Spoiler alert: I found their input profoundly relatable.)
Rachael, 35, Elgin, IL
Rachael is navigating a recently developed phone addiction while wanting to be a content creator. A few months ago, she underwent a career change and found herself working from home and with more free time.
“You feel a certain pull of like, ‘I need to understand the trends,’ ‘I need to know what music is cool right now,’ ‘I need to know what other people in my niche are doing.’ And so you feel like to be a good content creator, you have to exist in the space and participate in the space.
In the last couple weeks, I’ve seen a lot of content about people losing their time, losing their energy, losing their attention on the apps, and I was like, ‘are they talking to me?’.
I think I have an addictive personality, so at different times in my life I have gone from one thing to the next, and I think what I’ve realized is that in the last few months, TikTok has become my new thing. At the end of last year, I decided I’m not going to vape anymore. I think my brain is just seeking the dopamine in some other way. Before cannabis, it was food. Before that, it was Diet Coke. My pendulum has now swung to social media. When I had a job where I couldn’t be on it, I wasn’t. Now, I’m like, ‘oh, it’s a black hole—it’ll suck you in fast.’”
Anonymous, 45, Reno, NV
“My phone addiction started during the pandemic because we [my brothers and I] have a beverage company, and we supply things to restaurants and bars. All of our customers were closed, so our phone was not ringing. We were just staring at each other like, ‘the phone’s not ringing, we’re not getting any orders, we’re going to have to fire everyone, we’re going to lose our business.’”
This person says that licensing laws allowed them to make and distribute hand sanitizer, just like most other alcohol companies—there were tons of businesses going after the same resources.
“I was googling and calling every single bottle manufacturer until google was like, ‘that’s it.’ I was just on the phone all day, calling everyone I could possibly call. It worked out, and then we ended up having to hire more people. But when we started our newest brand, we went really viral, and I think the trauma from almost losing my business gave me this unhealthy relationship with having to respond.
We have videos that have millions of views and thousands of comments, and feeling like I had to immediately respond to everyone because they could be customers that we need, because we were so close to losing everything. It was this feeling of, ‘I’m going to miss out on something. I’m going to lose my business.’
As the business grew, the team really didn’t, so it was just me—so I just never put my phone down. And it was super validating because everyone was like, ‘their customer service is amazing! They respond immediately! It’s the best company in the world!’ it validated that addiction. At the time, my son was 4 years old, and I was just constantly holding my phone. I had more pictures of my products and screenshots of things I needed to fix than I did of my son, and that was really a wake up call that this was fucking crazy. I’m never going to get this time back, and I’m like busting my ass for people who don’t care about me. He’d be like ‘Mommy you always have your phone, why is your phone so important?’ So that’s when I was like, ‘Woah, I gotta step back.’
I put my phone in a separate room because it like, calls to you. Turning the notifications off because if I had notifications on, it dings constantly. I’m lucky enough to have customer support people now, and I trust them to do their job, telling them ‘I’m deleting social media for the next couple weeks, so just make sure you’re handling everything.’ But even if I delete these apps, the first thing my thumb does is go to where it was. And I’m just like, ‘woah, that’s so intense.’
I’m older, between millenial and gen-x, and so I didn’t have a phone when I was young. I had a big clunky phone for my car for safety, but it was so expensive you couldn’t use it. So for these younger kids, I just have so much empathy because the amount of anxiety that social media and my phone can give me, I can’t imagine a young person… the mean things people say to me as a business, I’ve gotten really used to just blowing it off, but for young people? That’s brutal. And so I empathize for them, and I just hope it’s like a pendulum, where it swung one way, it’s swinging the other way, and I hope it’ll go back to center.”
Ellie, 25, Illinois
“I got a smartphone (my first phone) in 7th grade, and I think I started to realize there was a problem with my usage in undergrad, so it’s been somewhere between 4-6 years since I started considering how bad it has gotten. I also have ADHD, so my phone becomes my procrastination tool and prevents me from getting things done on time, leaving on time for things, etc. I find myself wanting to check it while im with people, which removes me from being fully present with them.
My partner and I have started doing "phone jail," which is just placing our phones out of reach while we work, in bad cases he takes it from me and vice versa. I’m currently looking at getting a flip phone (the old kind, not a foldable smartphone) but I cannot fully give up social media or my smartphone since I’m the social media manager for a small musical ensemble. I plan to keep my iPhone as a glorified iPod and leave it at home and away from me most of the time, and rely on the flip phone for daily tasks.
I did try to use screen time limits at one point, more for just alerting me to how long I’ve been on the phone since ADHD oftentimes causes time blindness, but I just tap "15 more minutes" all day without thinking and it’s not effective anymore. I also thought my ADHD was the primary issue and the phone problem would go away when I treated the ADHD, but I’ve not been very good at staying with a provider to help me with the adhd since I’ve been moving to and from school so frequently.
Now that I’ve finished (for now) I’m really trying to get off the phone and move on with my life, but being functionally unemployed does not lend itself well to getting rid of doomscrolling. I hope getting a flip phone and getting rid of my iPhone (as much as I can) will help.”
Hilary, 39, Springdale, AR
“I think my phone addiction began in graduate school when I discovered that I could read/research using my phone. Having access to digital journal articles was super convenient and I could more easily build reading lists by finding articles online and importing them into my zotero library. I became really reliant on my phone for information gathering and staying current.
My phone addiction really took off when TikTok became popular during the pandemic though. I downloaded it out of boredom and a need for social connection. Since the pandemic my TikTok usage has increased somehow. I don't dare look at my stats, but I'd say I average about 3hrs of TikTok a day.
Other than TikTok, I read news articles, watch YouTube, listen to podcasts, and play games on my phone, in addition to using my phone for work to send emails, post announcements to blackboard, and source information/news for my lectures. Total phone use per day might be about 8hrs on average.
Using my phone for so much is convenient and useful, but there are definitely downsides. I'm not the kind of person that'll make in-person socializing awkward by being on my phone, but I'm on it constantly when I'm alone. In the last two years I've really struggled to feel like I'm moving forward in life. I've had a lot of physical and mental health struggles that my phone addiction has probably made worse.
I recently quit my tenured position in AL to move to AR and be closer to my family. I'm adjuncting (teaching part-time) until I can find a full time teaching position or something else I enjoy that'll pay the bills. I'm kind of an introvert, so TikTok fulfills most of my desire for social connection, but that comes with a lot of drawbacks.One, I'm much less likely to leave the comfort of my house to seek out new experiences and friends. Two, while scrolling, I see a million examples of people doing interesting research and work while I sit at home contemplating my own future. It's difficult because seeing people do interesting work can be motivating, but instead of putting my phone down and trying to be creative or productive myself, I just keep scrolling.
Over time, I begin to feel like I'm less capable or a failure because I haven't really made progress on anything interesting. I've started tons of personal and professional projects inspired by my fyp, but haven't really followed through on any of them.
I've also felt that my increased TikTok usage has led me to be more negative and critical. I've tried to curate an fyp that is positive and informative, without all the negativity and misinformation that is so prevalent online, but the algorithm still pushes that crap my way from time to time. The news lately has made it even harder to filter.
Lastly, I find my phone usage also tends to increase my spending. I'm a genuine cheapskate and typically won't buy something until I've done a bunch of research to know it's worth the price and that I'll actually like/use the product, but I know I wouldn't spend nearly as much if I weren't on my phone all the time.I've tried so many things to break my addiction! I set time limits on TikTok and other apps. I've kept a journal recording the good/bad parts of my phone addiction in an attempt to show myself that the negatives outweigh the positives. I've tried using grayscale to make scrolling less enjoyable. None of the tactics have worked long term. The only thing that has worked more than the other things has been defining ‘business hours’ for myself during which I cannot use my phone. Still, when I don't have much to do during those daytime hours, it's really difficult for me to resist scrolling. Having ADHD and only a part-time job makes sticking with any of my routines difficult.”
Anonymous, 38, Fairfield, CT
“I'd say I got addicted at the height of the pandemic when I got TikTok on my phone. I've always relied on my phone and social media sucked me in. First Instagram and then TikTok. I feel like it drains my critical thinking ability. Meaning it's easy for me to take things at face value rather than look things up. I don’t like that.
I've deleted the apps from my phone at one point. Now I use the one sec app. I also now set my phone to do not disturb/sleep mode. The screen goes all gray after a certain time, and I turn off most notifications on all apps except calls and texts. It ebbs and flows but I'm conscious about it.
I often bring my phone into the shower with me. And I can end up scrolling for hours because my ADHD enjoys the dopamine hit.”
Okay so, now what?
The topic of how our phones have become extensions of our hands is, of course, one that entire books are being written about—so I am intentionally zooming in on the individual experience of phone addiction: how it feels, what it does, how we can try to move through it.
Which is to say, I don’t, in this piece, have a wealth of answers to the question of: now what?
I am, however, inspired by what the strangers I found on TikTok (yes, yes, we all see the irony in using my phone that I’m addicted to to find other people who are addicted to their phones) said they’ve tried/are trying:
Putting your phone in another room
Turning off notifications
If you use your phone for business reasons, delegating on-phone tasks if you can
Doing “phone jail” with a partner or friend
Getting a flip phone!
Defining “business hours” outside of which you don’t use your phone
Turning your phone to grayscale
Deleting the apps
Using blocker/mindfulness apps like one sec
Reader: if you resonate with phone addiction, how does it impact you and your life? What have you done or are you doing to try to have a healthier relationship with your phone? Where do we go from here?
