What Happens When You Cut Screen Time for a Month

Cal Newport picked 30 days for his digital declutter. You set aside your optional apps and sites, keep only what your work and relationships need, and then decide what earns a place back. He tested the plan with 1,600 volunteers. Researchers and a group of young people in Washington have tried versions of their own.

The awkward part comes first

Newport writes that for most people the discomfort begins to fade after the first half of the declutter. A group of twenty- and thirty-somethings in Washington tried a version of this in March. They swapped smartphones for basic flip phones for a month through a program called Month Offline.

Jay West, 29, kept catching himself reaching for a smartphone he no longer had. At a bus stop, he did not know when the bus would come. Rachael Schultz, 35, stopped cyclists to ask the way. West ended up finding the month liberating. “It’s okay to be bored,” he said.

Boredom leaves room for other things

Lizzie Benjamin, 25, went back to CDs her father had burned, since Spotify was out. Bobby Loomis, 25, had trouble getting through a single TV episode without checking his phone. By the time the month ended, he was spending four hours a day on screens instead of six, and his walks came without headphones and with birdsong.

Newport’s volunteers found their own replacements. Many got back into reading and knitting, and some joined sports leagues. A lot of them had not realized how much screens had crowded those activities out. Newport says the shift is harder for younger people, who grew up online and have fewer offline habits to go back to. They have to try things to find out what they like.

What the studies measured

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin asked 467 iPhone users, average age 32, to block mobile internet on their phones for two weeks. Calls and texts still worked, and computers were still open. About 91 percent of participants improved on at least one of three measures: well-being, mental health or sustained attention. People also spent more time socializing in person, exercising and being in nature. Two weeks after the block ended, the group that blocked first still had higher well-being and mental health than when they started. Compliance was hard. Of the 467, 266 installed the blocking app, and 119 kept the block on for at least 10 of the 14 days.

A separate trial asked 220 people aged 17 to 25 with emotional distress to limit social media on their phones to one hour a day for three weeks. Compared with a control group, they reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety and less fear of missing out. They also slept more.

You do not have to go all the way

Julia Brailovskaia, a psychologist at Ruhr University Bochum, ran a one-week study with 619 participants split into three groups. One group quit smartphones, one cut an hour a day, and one changed nothing. Both approaches had positive effects on lifestyle and well-being. Depression and anxiety symptoms dropped, and life satisfaction and physical activity went up.

The effects lasted longer in the group that cut back. Four months later, that group averaged 45 minutes less phone use per day. The group that quit averaged 38 minutes less. “It’s not necessary to completely give up the smartphone to feel better,” Brailovskaia said.

Kostadin Kushlev, a psychology researcher at Georgetown University, says going smartphone-free for even a couple of weeks leads to better well-being and an improved ability to sustain attention. Early studies suggest those gains last.

Treat it as a rebuild

Newport says the people who succeed see the 30 days as a declutter. “If you treat it like a detox, cleanse, or break you’ll almost certainly slide back,” he says. He compares it to clearing out a house: “You clear everything out, and build it back up from scratch.”

Josh Morin, an organizer of the Washington program, says ditching the phone is not enough. “In order to actually break that, you have to provide an enriching, communal, social life,” he says. His program includes a weekly discussion session at a karaoke bar.

Kendall Schrohe, 23, finished the Washington program in January. She has since deleted Instagram and started a digital sobriety group of her own.