5 Health Benefits of Cutting Down on Screen Time
Everyone knows that they probably should cut down on the amount of time they spend in front of screens, but acknowledging you should do something is a lot easier than actually committing to making it a priority. Part of the problem is that the negative effects of screen time are often invisible, which can make it easy to forget just how detrimental technology can be to our health.
In case you’re on the fence about quitting your tech addiction, here are five more reasons to pull the plug.
Alleviate Painful “Text Neck” Symptoms
We have good news and bad news: the good news is that your achy neck and upper back aren’t a sign that you’re getting old. The bad news? The amount of time you spend on your phone is likely doing much more harm to your upper spine than you realize.
The human head weighs 10 to 12 pounds, which is the weight your neck muscles are equipped to support. But when your head is bent forward — as when you’re looking down at a phone — the amount of force on your neck increases to 50 to 60 pounds. That’s approximately five times the weight your neck is meant to hold!
Limit the amount of time you use your phone to read, browse, or play games, and you’ll naturally find your neck pain starting to ease.
Prevent Harm to Eyes and Skin
The type of light emitted by screens is called High Energy Visible light, otherwise known as “blue light.” This type of light is damaging to light-sensitive cells in the retina, which is why too much uninterrupted time in front of a screen can cause eye strain and headaches. Over a prolonged period of time, blue light exposure can contribute to long-term vision problems like cataracts and macular degeneration.
You can give your eyes a bit of a break by wearing blue light blocking lenses, but you’ll have to cut down on screen exposure if you want to avoid the negative effects that blue light has on the skin.
Researchers have found that blue light can penetrate the skin even deeper than UV rays can, causing premature skin aging and hyperpigmentation. You can alleviate some of these impacts by using a night filter on your screens and by wearing sunscreen daily, especially on your face, even when working indoors. But the only guaranteed way to protect yourself is by cutting down on blue light exposure itself.
Save a Surprising Amount of Money
It’s easy to overlook exactly how much time we spend on screens, especially when they’ve become such a natural part of our day. But if you start to track just how much time you spend connected to the internet, you may find that a lot of that time could be cut back — possibly even enough to save money by downgrading to a lower or slower internet package.
Forcing yourself onto a slower connection can help reinforce habit changes like reading physical books and newspapers instead of digital ones, calling friends and family instead of texting, and spending more time on non-tech hobbies.
Saving money on your internet might not sound like a health benefit, but it is. Researchers say that people who spend less and save more report less psychological distress, fewer depressive symptoms and lowered anxiety.
Help Quit Other Addictive Behaviors
If you’re struggling to curb your drinking, smoking, gambling, or overeating, one unusual solution might be to cut back on your screen usage first.
Playing video games, using social media, and other online activities deliver feel-good hits of dopamine to the brain — the exact same effect that is caused by smoking, eating carbs and sugars, and using heroin. Unlike healthy dopamine generators, like sex or exercise, these addictive behaviors condition the brain to demand hits of the chemical more and more frequently, rather than adjusting to the consistent generation of dopamine in a steady, reliable way.
The connection between screen time and dangerous addictions is a distant one, as there are many other factors that contribute to the development of an addiction. However, consistent reliance on excessive screen time to get through the day trains your brain to rely on “quick-hit” dopamine generators, which can sabotage your efforts to quit other addictive behaviors. Replacing screen time with things like exercise, time with friends, and other healthy dopamine generators will help you develop healthier pleasure-seeking behaviors.
Improve Your Mental Health
Struggles with depression and anxiety are caused by a whole host of complicated factors, none of which can be diagnosed by anyone but a mental health professional. However, you can improve your chances of feeling better by eliminating things that have a negative impact on your mental health, including screens.
Cutting down on screen time can improve mental health as a secondary effect of the impacts above — alleviating addictions, curing physical pain, and feeling at financial ease can all contribute to better overall well-being. Blue light also interferes with circadian rhythms, which not only makes it more difficult to fall asleep but also prevents you from benefiting from sleep-related hormones while resting. Insufficient sleep is one of the biggest contributing factors to most mood disorders, so if you struggle with mental health, one of the first things you should try is to improve your sleep hygiene (which includes cutting back on-screen exposure).
While technology is undeniably a part of modern life, there are many reasons we should all be monitoring our screen use and correcting our overreliance on tech devices. Not only does decreased screen time make us more active and engaged with those we love, but it also benefits our brains, eyes, skin, and souls, too!
