Is my phone a stress magnet?

Something I’ve become increasingly aware of is how much stress radiates from my phone, or rather, that my phone is a delivery mechanism for stress-inducing things.

These days almost everything we do can be done from our phones. We take them everywhere with us, they’re always present - in our pockets, bags, on the table - always only an arms length away.

Reaching for our phones has become an almost default action, we check notifications, apps, social media, emails, messages - the list goes on. Do we need to do these things every few minutes? Absolutely not. It’s become such a default action now that most of us don’t even realise how much we do it.

I know for me it’s started to feel like a lot of stressors come from my phone, and I’m consciously starting to think about how I can address that. A big part of it is starting to be more present - with the people I’m with or the surroundings I’m in.

I thought of the stress magnet analogy while on annual leave from work. Still receiving emails, notifications and failing to resist the urge to check in on things every 30 minutes, meant I wasn’t able to fully disconnect and recharge. It made me think about what other things I do through my phone that add to this stress.

Maybe we struggle to just sit and ”be” without doing something. I notice this in myself, as soon as I'm faced with the prospect of "doing nothing", I reach for my phone. I figured there must be some research on this. What I found of particular interest is below.

Smartphones create a very effective combination of reward learning, uncertainty, habit formation, attention capture and emotional regulation. Over time, the possibility that something interesting is waiting can become enough to make you reach for your phone.

Unpredictability makes checking particularly powerful. Every time you pick up your phone, you don't know what you'll find. Maybe nothing. Maybe a message from someone important. Maybe an interesting email. Maybe likes. Maybe breaking news. Maybe a genuinely fascinating video. Reward-learning systems are especially sensitive to unexpected or uncertain outcomes. Reviews of social-media behaviour describe how intermittent and unpredictable social rewards can reinforce repeated checking.

Eventually, checking becomes a habit rather than a conscious decision. This has been observed for a surprisingly long time. A classic smartphone study by Oulasvirta and colleagues identified what they called “checking habits”: brief, repetitive inspections of dynamic content. Their field experiments suggested these behaviours become reinforced by quickly accessible informational rewards. Read more.

Thinking about these points, it's not hard to see how our default response to situations has become our phones.

Bored? Phone.

Waiting for someone? Phone.

Difficult piece of work? Phone.

Can't remember something? Phone.

Thought pops into your head? Phone.

The scary thing about reading the above examples is how much I recognise this behaviour in myself.

In the Naked technique library we have a technique called "Just One Thing", which is about focusing on doing just a single thing. For me, a nice coffee (my wife refers to these small things that bring you joy as “glimmers”) is something I want to focus on enjoying more consciously. Usually, I would have my coffee whilst scrolling my phone, checking apps or notifications, but now I’m trying to focus on just enjoying my coffee with no other distractions or activity. Just doing that one thing of drinking my coffee.

I’m trying to reduce my mental clutter. I think this will be a good step towards doing that by not adding unnecessary stressors to the already overwhelming mental load.

Have a go at just doing nothing and resisting the urge to go for your phone. It's surprisingly hard!