This is Why You Can't Stop Checking Your Phone

By now, most of us are very aware that the way our screen time and phone use has skyrocketed in the last few years (who else downloaded TikTok in 2020 just for something to do for two weeks at home and never looked back?) isn’t exactly good for our brains, but what are we supposed to do about it?

The way we use our digital devices can feel inescapable and impossible to change, and we’ve all felt the effects, from the way having our phone in the same room makes us feel dumber to the moment the term “brain rot” was crowned Oxford’s Word of the Year in 2024. Yikes.

Whether you’ve been feeling a little too called out by your phone’s screen time summaries lately, you just want to be more present and less distracted in conversation, or you’ve realized that your screen time has become problematic and is impacting your mood, focus, relationships, or more, this article will help make sense of why it’s so hard to just leave our phones alone and share some science-backed ways to break the habit and get your brain back again.

What Did They Put In This Thing, Anyway?

We know that kids’ growing brains need chances for uninterrupted focus and deep thinking to develop properly, but we don’t always stop to consider the things our adult brains need and how our screen use disrupts that.

Imagine a young child who is totally immersed in reading an exciting story book or learning a new sport. They are focused and determined to finish what they’ve started. Their body is attentive, ready to absorb what’s unfolding in front of them (or in their mind’s eye, in the case of reading a book). When they finish the book or successfully complete the skill they’ve been working on, they are proud, satisfied, and content with their progress.

Now contrast that image with the idea of the same child entering an arcade. Lights are flashing, everything is colourful and loud, and their options seem endless. They hurry up to one game and smash one of the oversized buttons, before another catches their attention and they walk over to it. They shove a coin in the machine and it whirs to life even more. Soon they are locked in and not paying attention to anything else in the room. They complete the level and start the next one instantly. It just keeps going.

Our brains on screens are a little like those two scenarios.

Our phones and other devices are designed to keep us hanging on for another rush of feel-good hormones in our brains (mostly dopamine). The colours, lights, notifications, pings, vibrations, and buzzes keep us jumping from mental high to mental high without ever really feeling like we’ve accomplished something that our brains can close off.

When we’re doing something offline that engages our brains more deeply (like movement or learning a new skill), we still experience that increase in dopamine, but instead of a quick spike that leaves us scrolling and scrolling looking for more, our brains can complete the reward loop and feel the sense of completion and satisfaction that’s missing from our screen time.

That’s why turning off your device when you’ve become a little too reliant on it causes more irritability, frustration, brain fog, or just plain meltdowns (in kids and adults) – you’ve just cut off your endless and super easily accessible supply of feel-good hormones.

When “Just Turn It Off” Doesn’t Work

By now, you’ve probably already heard a lot of suggestions for curbing your phone use. Tips like “put your phone away at night” or “turn off notifications” or “just shut your phone off” might have helped for a while, but since you’re still reading, I’m going to assume that you’re looking for a more in-depth solution.

Remember how I mentioned that your brain still gets a dose of those feel-good reward chemicals when you do offline tasks? There’s nothing wrong with dopamine or the other naturally occurring hormones that contribute to your attention and reward cycles. The problem is getting them in ways that don’t allow the rest of your brain to activate, participate, and rest in the ways it needs to. So, instead of just turning your phone off, try these suggestions to change the way you relate to your devices, and still give your brain what it needs.

1. Work with a therapist to figure out why you use your phone the way you do.

Seriously, I know this might sound extreme, but the patterns and habits you’ve created when it comes to your phone can tell you a lot about what needs are being met with your sometimes-excessive screen time, especially if you’ve resisted changing how you use it or always seem to find excuses. There’s probably a reason you feel like there’s no possible way those emails can wait until you get to the office, or why you’ve zoned out and finished an entire phone game over the course of a single day. A therapist can help you unravel what you’re getting from your phone, so you can use the rest of these suggestions more effectively.

2. Don’t just sit still.

Your brain wants to be actively engaged in something stimulating and appropriately challenging, so give it something! Research has shown that “passive screen time is like eating sugar but for your brain. It ‘tastes’ good, and you want it now, but you’re not actually feeding yourself. You’re not giving your brain any nutrition.” If you’ve taken away some screen time, there’s a gap that needs to be filled with something helpful. This can look like finding a project at work that you’re genuinely interested in and carving out time to do some deep work on it, taking up a new hobby or activity that involves working with your hands or moving your body, or just switching back from audiobooks to physically reading paper books for a while.

3. Make your phone boring.

Whether you decide to take your email app off your phone entirely and only check from your laptop, remove games from your phone and only use them on your game console at home, or set your phone to greyscale and simplify the home screen, commit to making your phone feel less like an arcade for your brain and more like somewhere you walk into with a purpose. Finding ways to shift the dopamine chasing from your phone to the things you do in your real offline life will help make sure you have more opportunities to be present in the moment you are actually living in instead of getting caught up inside that 3-inch screen.

Conclusion

As you sort through how you use your phone, remember to give yourself some grace and self-compassion when it doesn’t go as perfectly as you hoped and you find yourself in the middle of an unexpected doom-scrolling session again.

Your nervous system is actually doing a fantastic job at doing exactly what it was designed to do, unfortunately in a digital world that is really good at hijacking it. Digital habits aren’t just about willpower or discipline, but also involve a whole lot of unmet needs, over- and under-stimulation issues, and brains that are exhausted from chasing tiny hits of relief all day.

You don’t need to quit your phone or “be better.” You need awareness, intention, and more ways to engage your brain that actually restore it. When you understand what your screen time is doing for you, you can start meeting those needs offline in ways that feel grounding instead of draining. So here’s to less doomscrolling, more actual rest, and the kind of fun that’s actually, well, fun.