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What excessive screen time does to the adult brain
- zingababba 2y ago24/7 screens bring it on.
- Helmut10001 2y agoRegarding the recommendation to not spend the first hour of the day in front of the screen. I found the other way around more helpful: Not spending the last 1-2 hours in front of screens. This helps me to get better sleep. In the morning, I find it not so difficult and screen time (+coffee) helps me to wake up slowly.
- siquick 2y agoI try and avoid screens before sleep but also use a Kindle for reading before sleeping - wondering if the e-ink displays count as screen time in studies like this?
- virtue3 2y agoLED backlight might. If no backlight probably fine.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoYeah but you need some light in order to read, and most lights are LED nowadays. That said, I have a Philips wake-up light that has a very pleasant yellow and dimmable light. I wonder what its frequency is though, some cheaper leds don't blink fast enough and especially when I'm tired it's noticeable. I just checked it with the slow-mo camera of my phone, my overhead lamps have a visible flickering, but the wake-up light has an interesting shuttering / interlacing effect, when I up the brightness (which increases brightness and shifts the light more to white) it seems to alternate between a white and orange light source. Might be multiple bulbs interlacing. Anyway, LED backlight shouldn't be a problem if it's not white light. Best to have some additional light in the room though, to reduce contrast / eye strain between the screen and the background.
- kmarc 2y agoWhat about yellow(ish) backlight? I switched to Kobo bc of that
- ywvcbk 2y agoNo, only actually candlelight is fine. Ideally an open fire. However reading itself is unnatural so it can only lead to negative outcomes..
- squigz 2y agoThis is surely sarcastic, right?
- portaouflop 2y agoI take it you you’re sarcastic but natural is dying at age twenty from a broken leg, miss me with natural living
- OJFord 2y agoI know it's just an example, but it didn't take modern medicine for us not to die of broken legs at twenty. There's some risks sure, but the norm was presumably lying down and resting because it (especially doing anything else) bloody hurts, it gradually healing, and then varying degrees of hobbling for the rest of life because it healed without a splint. (And then it wouldn't be that surprising I don't think if we figured out splints long before anything you might call medicine.)
- portaouflop 2y agoWe didn’t need modern medicine to heal broken bones but for sure more than what was „naturally“ available. You can switch out broken bones for „being dragged from the campfire into the dark and devoured“ - another natural occurrence that I gladly live without
- squigz 2y agoIIRC, most of the evidence regarding screens before bed being detrimental were focused on the "blue light" thing, so a warmer light is probably better. (I think the science behind blue light being bad for us is still up for debate, but it's hard for me to ignore the amount of anecdata I've heard, including my own experience using flux and the like)
- hug 2y agoFrom anecdotal experience, it makes essentially no difference. I read for an hour or two before bed every night. Paper, kindle, or my current iPad mini make no real difference to my sleep. Dim lights, relaxing, and trying to clear my brain of distractions other than what I’m reading make more of a difference. It’s almost but not quite like meditation.
- simmerup 2y agoWhat do you do instead of TV/Computer before bed?
- gyosko 2y agoWhat about a nice book?
- simmerup 2y agoI read but every night for 1-2hours? No way.
- globular-toast 2y agoWhy not? You can make reading a habit if you want to. I find it highly rewarding and glad I have this habit instead of something else like scrolling social media.
- simmerup 2y agoNot disparaging your hobby, its just not for me. I already read enough
- Scarblac 2y agoThere's also chores, talking with people, board games, going for a walk, a bath, sex, exercise, just doing nothing in particular for a bit, etc. The choice isnt only screens or books.
- SamPatt 2y agoDoing the dishes is a nice balance of meditative, boring, and feeling accomplished. A good nightly chore. Exercise can backfire in terms of sleep. A bit earlier in the day and it's great. But not right before bed, at least not in my experience.
- NamTaf 2y ago
- thelittleone 2y agoI think both make sense. Although I go through phases of following it. I find that in the first few hours of the morning, I prefer to limit inputs to things I don't have control over but instead achieve some small to do list items (starting with making bed). Things I know I can get done and build some momentum. A few hours of productivity gives me enough momentum to take in external inputs.
- darkstar_16 2y agoI am the first one to wake up (with an alarm) in my house on weekdays. I also find the light from the phone actually helps me wake up slowly. If I don't wake up early (get ready myself) and get the kids ready for school, it'll have a cascading effect on the whole day, so screen time works for me for that purpose. And it's usually only 10-15 minutes max. In that time, I don't see or do work stuff. Since, we have family around the world, I usually just go through the family chat messages, some light social etc in that time. I get why it's a bad habit but I also have a reason why it works. On weekends, of course the alarms are off and I wake up when I wake up.
- greg_V 2y agoNo screen before bedtime/no screens in bed is like the easiest health improvement hack that anyone can implement. With that said, anecdotally I can vouch for the "no screen in the first hour" suggestion the article is making. I've been working for home for the past few years, and I feel more sluggish since I just move to my laptop first thing in the morning, instead of having that preparation-breakfast-commute routine. Granted I live in a walkable city so commute doesn't mean what it means in SV, but it's the same idea.
- A_Venom_Roll 2y agoWhen the pandemic forced me to work from home, incorporating a 20 minute morning walk in the neighborhood before work was one of the first things I added to my routine. It's great to make the 'transition' and also starts up the body faster.
- Toorkit 2y agoI open the lichess app in bed and do chess puzzles. Not even 2 minutes and I'm out like a light.
- kome 2y agoand many spend 8 hours at work in front a screen :(
- XorNot 2y ago"screentime" is the worst term because it has almost nothing to do with what they're actually talking about - i.e. does an eReader count as screentime? Why? Why does a book not?
- kome 2y agoi don't know but i think it does indeed, i guess there is a relationship between body and mind that screen completely efface. even moving pages, physically, make reading more meaningful: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/well-read/202402/the-case-for-paper-books-vs-e-readers https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/well-read/202402/the...
- sebst 2y agoI guess there are two main effects of “screentime”: consumption only (doomscrolling or binge watching) and the light effect. A book would not tick any of those marks An ereader would account for looking into a light source only if you use background illumination. And even then, it can be set to emit significantly less light than a smartphone screen, especially in the blue frequencies
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoIf you want to read a book then you need some source of light.
- sebst 2y agoObviously true. The difference is that the you usually don’t look directly into the light source when reading a book
- gyosko 2y ago8 hours in front of a screen while working is not the same as 8 hours doomscrolling content, at least that's my guess.
- csvm 2y agoOn my family's iPhones, we have a Shortcut (automation) that kicks in every evening at 9 pm: 1. Turn Mobile Data Off 2. Turn Bluetooth Off 3. Turn WiFi Off 4. Turn AppleTV off (this one is fun because it can cut off a show mid-sentence) 5. Set brightness to 10%. Then, a reverse of the above at 6am the following day. Normal phone signal is still enabled for any emergency calls, but most apps become useless without the internet.
- codethief 2y agoAndroid user here. Is this something built into iOS or do you use an app for that?
- int_19h 2y agohttps://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/intro-to-personal-automation-apd690170742/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/intro-to-personal-...
- siquick 2y agoThis is great, thanks.
- curtisblaine 2y ago> Then, a reverse of the above at 6am the following day. I understand that's not the case, but I want to imagine your AppleTV coming back to life at 6am every morning, resuming the show mid-sentence at 100% volume. Instant alarm clock.
- thomasfromcdnjs 2y agoSounds about right. Curious question, up until age 18 did you have a similar upbringing?
- imp0cat 2y agoThat's kinda hard to answer without dating yourself, which the OP might not want to do.
- MrJagil 2y ago“One of the biggest issues with picking up the phone right away in the morning is that when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat,” says Loeffler. “You wouldn’t want to wake up and look a bear in the face every morning. On a physiological level, it’s the same thing.” This is interesting to me. It does make some evolutionary sense but at the same time, i wake up every morning and look at my girlfriends face, hopefully that does not subconsciously trigger the same response. That said, the "sky before screens" idea has been rummaging in my mind since i first heard about it https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/sky-before-screens-has-made-me-a-better-cyclist-could-it-work-for-you https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/sky-before-screens-has-ma...
- frereubu 2y agoThis sounds like hocus pocus to me, along the lines of the claim that phone alert tones activate the "love centre" of the brain. Just so happens that the "love centre" is also the "vomiting centre" along with a load of other stuff. I'd treat this hand-wavy claim with the same kind of skepticism - your counter-example is an excellent one. I agree that looking at a phone first thing in the morning is a bad idea, but for very different reasons.
- interludead 2y agoStriking a balance in our morning routines can be more beneficial overall.
- andai 2y agoI assume you don't mean an equal ratio of drivel and truly meaningful experiences, though I'd love to hear more.
- andai 2y agoI got into "deep work" a while ago, keeping my internet off until noon every day. It blew my mind how calm and focused I was when I didn't fill my head with nonsense first thing in the morning.
- dataengineer56 2y agoI wonder if any of these studies distinguish between people who use screentime more productively. I use my phone on a morning for Duolingo and logging my workouts. That's quite different to doomscrolling, but I still wonder if it's good or bad. There's also the category of people who stew infront of a TV all day - it's unsurprising that these people will have lower cognitive functions, but is that because they don't have the drive or ambition to do anything else? Is that comparable to someone who comes back from work tired and watches 3 hours of Netflix while doomscrolling?
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago> I use my phone on a morning for Duolingo Duolingo is extremely passive. you're not learning a language, you're learning how to answer correctly on an app. It's a lot more time efficient to do exercises from a grammar. But... It doesn't feel as good. Which is exactly the point.
- frereubu 2y agoThat's too dismissive in my view. Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing. I'd also argue that grammar exercises are cripplingly boring for most people, so if the choice is not learning or grammar exercises they'd choose not learning, which is worse. I'd also argue that you're only talking strictly about learning language in the most efficient way, but missing out on the fact that if you can make it fun, the enjoyment in itself is a valid reason for doing something.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoLearning fast is fun to me. Edit: yes, I am dismissive because I've tried it and seen that its obviously a scam, in the sense that it's sold as a fun way of learning but it's actually just a fun way of not learning.
- jamager 2y ago> Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing I disagree. Duolingo makes you feel that you are being productive and you are learning (when you actually don't). That is worse than nothing, because when you do nothing you know you are being indulgent, will feel bad about it, and react. Duolingo is like a candy wrapped in package that says "this is a healthy vegetable".
- greenavocado 2y agoArticle and its linked studies fail to establish a causal relationship. Put another way the findings can also be summarized as, "broken people tend to have these habits."
- frereubu 2y ago"What the adult brain does to excessive screen time". I imagine there are probably feedback loops here too.
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- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- mixedbit 2y agoIt would be great to see research which screen time activities have these detrimental effects, because umbrella term "excessive screen time" can be too generalizing.
- komali2 2y agoThis may be because I no longer live an isolated American lifestyle, but my impression in Taiwan is that adults are hopelessly addicted to their phones. This is gonna come off as obnoxious but I can't help it, whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. Sometimes one of them even has a little phone holder and just watches videos while they eat. This plus absolutely mad levels of Instagram engagement makes me feel like we're at a critical era of phone addiction. You thought Americans were taking to IG and threads hoh boy go look up some Threads posts about the typhoon. Anyway when I use reddit, IG, and even this site too much I am unhappy, and yet I continue the behavior. Clearly addictive relationship. Am I just sick and have an unhealthy relationship with my phone and other people just use and enjoy their phones? Or am I just more aware of the harm it causes me?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- latexr 2y ago> whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. I used to play a game when out to dinner: If there’s another table with two people and you notice one of them getting up (likely to go to the bathroom), see how long it takes the other person to take out their phone. It stopped being fun pretty fast because everyone did it instantly. > Or am I just more aware of the harm it causes me? It’s that one.
- nicolas_t 2y agoMy wife complains that I take my kindle to the bathroom and will read on the way and back. I'm nowhere near as addicted to my phone though.
- medvezhenok 2y agoTo be fair, pre-kindle we used to have a stack of magazines in the bathroom for toilet reading. And my chess instructor used to assign what he called "toilet puzzles", or chess puzzles that were thoughtless enough to be done on the can (as compared to the "actual" homework puzzles which were more cognitively demanding and required dedicated work) So it was definitely a thing pre-modern-tech too. Plenty of people used to read the newspaper on the can (and in the Soviet Union you would then use it to wipe afterwards - extra efficiency!)
- IndieGoat 2y agoI use an App called FlowBuddy to reduce my screen time on my phone. It really helped me to be less on my phone :)
- ulimn 2y agoI'm not very confident about the quality of this study... It already begins like this: Evidence suggests that chronic sensory stimulation via excessive exposure to screen time may affect brain development in negative ways. Excessive smartphone use may increase the risk [...] Do they consider "screen time" only to be "smartphone use"? Is it better to use a tablet? Or PC / laptop? What if I use a 6.7" screen with my computer? Does it count as "bad" screen time? Also, do they take into account what you do on said screen? Reading a book, learning something or binging tiktok videos, watching the facade people put up on facebook / insta don't sound the same to me.
- boccaff 2y agoI'd guess that you can equate "screen time" to "smartphone use" in most of the population but here. Similar to what people are using the screen for. To include so many variations of screen would complicate a lot the study, and without a prior about why it should matter, you are probably safer starting with something more homogeneous.
- dukeyukey 2y agoA huge number of people are professional screen-users. Almost every office job, and quite a few otherwise. I probably spend more time on my work laptop than my phone, and I'm pretty bad for using my phone a lot.
- ywvcbk 2y ago> smartphone use" in most of the population but here Presumably you don’t think that all the white collar workers who aren’t in tech spend all of their work-hours scrolling tiktok/etc.?
- squigz 2y ago> I'd guess that you can equate "screen time" to "smartphone use" in most of the population but here. Similar to what people are using the screen for. I'm fairly confident this is not a safe assumption. > To include so many variations of screen would complicate a lot the study How so, though? > without a prior about why it should matter, you are probably safer starting with something more homogeneous. That's not very scientific, is it? There's no prior as to why it shouldn't matter, which is what the authors seem to think.
- sourcepluck 2y ago> excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours. Having read Michel Desmurget's "La Fabrique du crétin digital", this sentence was moderately triggering. Has anyone here read it? I don't know if it's been translated to English yet, and I know it received some very bitter reviews [which mostly seemed beside the picture he was trying to construct from the studies he used, it seemed to me]. However, it did seem to attempt to take the problem seriously.
- yamrzou 2y ago"La Fabrique du crétin digital" was translated to English as "Screen Damage": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61723668-screen-damage https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61723668-screen-damage Here is an interesting review: https://www.frontiere.eu/children-and-excessive-smartphone-use-factory-of-digital-cretins/ https://www.frontiere.eu/children-and-excessive-smartphone-u...
- sourcepluck 2y agoOh thank you! That is a nice review.
- nunobrito 2y agoTL;DR: Go outside, touch grass
- pieter_mj 2y ago... with your bare feet to get grounded, get maximum full spectrum sunlight. Excessive artificial light (which means ao screentime) is the source of all health problems.
- roschdal 2y agoThank you America.
- makeitdouble 2y agoWhile trying to go a bit deeper into the sources, they honestly feel extremely weak... An example of how negative impact on the brain is backed: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-019-00182-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-019-00182-2 From the abstract: > we systematically identified articles meeting the following inclusion criteria: published in English between January 1999–July 2019; human or animal subjects; primary and secondary sources including original research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews. Primary search terms focused on “smartphone,” “mental health,” “substance use,” “neurodevelopment,” and “neurodegeneration”; secondary search terms focused on “social media,” “anxiety,” “cannabis,” and “dementia”. They basically went fishing for studies that focus on the negative impacts, came back with enough content and packaged it as a meta-study. This sure could show some negative traits potentially associated with screen time. But that's very far from justifying TFA's title, worded as a causation, and not some random association when singling out pathological subjects.
- bjornsing 2y agoYeah and it’s not hard to come up with a hypothesis with reverse causation: people struggling with mental health tend to (on average) live more solitary lives with more screen time.
- karma_fountain 2y agoAlso people watching five hours of TV a day maybe aren't doing too much exercise.
- joenot443 2y agoThe author's fairly active elsewhere online, looks like she's a "Health Coach" at UC San Diego with a MS in Kinesiology. This isn't science journalism, it's closer to influencer health blogging. My impression is that the author doesn't have a background in technical writing and probably wrote this for an audience different from the typical HN crowd.
- 0xedd 2y ago[dead]
- Refusing23 2y agoThis reads like people spend and hour in bed looking at their phone before getting up... lol i wake up, turn off my phones alarm. then i get up, go wake up my kid, take a shower while he eats breakfast and we're off after that.
- globular-toast 2y agoI do. It takes me ages to wake up in the morning. I need at least half an hour and it can easily be an hour if I'm able to. I do most of my tech news reading during this time so I don't consider it wasted.
- gandalfgreybeer 2y ago>This reads like people spend and hour in bed looking at their phone before getting up... lol This is very normal for a lot of people I know irl (at least those within my generation).
- fullstackchris 2y ago> more than two hours outside of work but that 8-10 of work screen? can't be bad! smh
- sanitycheck 2y agoSeriously. What does "screen time" even mean if it doesn't include the 9 hours a day I spend staring at 8 square feet of monitors and the ~45 mins the TV is on during meals? If they mean "phones" say "phones". If they mean "social media" say "social media". Oh but then all the bullshit about stuff being close to one's face wouldn't make "sense" (I wear glasses, I must be constantly terrorising myself.) It may be a very slight overreaction but my first thought is that everybody in the entire faculty that produced these findings should be re-employed doing something actually useful like grocery deliveries.
- lynx23 2y agoWhat a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. So an object close to your face is registered as a threat in the morning? Well, say bye bye to your coffee mug. I am sorry, but this is technophobic back-to-nature hippy babbling. Some people are mentally challenged, I give you that. But why is this projected onto everyone else? How about these people get help, instead of trying to convince the wolrd that X is bad?
- amelius 2y ago> The negative effects of screen time are insidious because you can’t see what’s happening in your brain as you’re staring at the screen The same holds for just about anything, like reading books.
- arendtio 2y agoScreen time feels like a very weird concept. I mean, it feels very different if I read news, write code or watch a movie. Similarly, the screen size and the environment (busy street vs. silent room), changes a lot of the experience too. And what about computer interactions which do not involve a screen like having an AI on a call? I would expect that all these factors play a role in the effects on the brain.
- Sponge5 2y agoPersonally, it also makes a difference how busy the screen is. A bunch of cookie banners and popup ads immediately spikes my cortisol level.
- bigbacaloa 2y ago[dead]
- trimethylpurine 2y agoThis is Stanford? Where is the research?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aucisson_masque 2y agoThis seems like bullshit to me, I am fully for reducing time spent on screen but the arguments given are not serious. For instance: > Another study found that adults who watched television for five hours or more per day had an increased risk of developing brain-related disease like dementia, stroke, or Parkinson’s So what? It doesn't mean tv is going to make you have dementia, stroke or parkinson. This prove nothing, it could be causality but also correlation. Aka, you have issue so you watch tv instead of going out. The whole article reads like pseudo-science.
- spoonfeeder006 2y ago"when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat" Ok I wonder to what extent the flight / fight response can be unconscious and not noticed And I get that FoF can be triggered. But from seeing the phone it can't be nearly as much as with seeing a bear coming at you can it? I'm also curious what kinds of objects do that, and why does the phone do it and not something else? Like would reading the news trigger that? Playing a game of chess? I think I will ask Perplexity AI on those later
- portaouflop 2y agoSeeing a phone triggers exactly the same response as when you see a 300kg bear charging at you.
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- kranke155 2y agoI have no choice but to use screens for work. What should I do then?
- gnz11 2y agoTake breaks? Maybe not worry so much about "wellness" articles? More often than not the anxiety these articles create is more detrimental than whatever the topic is about. For example, the article introduces an absurd "20-20-20" rule which states: "This rule suggests that individuals look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes of the day." Now clearly this is a rule that is impossible to realistically meet or maintain but yet the seed of anxiety is planted in the reader that they are not following yet another "rule" for better health (in this case eye health).
- mrweasel 2y agoI've seen this advise from other sources as well: "Spend time outside and get morning light" (In the first hour of getting up). That is a really stupid advise, it only for a few months a year. The rest of the time it's dark when I get up and will remain dark for more than an hour.
- OJFord 2y agoMaybe it's consistent with hyperfocus on doing things 'naturally' though? Before timekeeping we would've just risen & started work with the sun, gone to bed when it was dark and we tired. I'm not actually advocating that (I kind of like it but it's also a bit incompatible with interacting with a society not living such a way, to varying degrees depending on your job, family, etc.) I just wonder if that would be the author's response - well what are you doing up over an hour before sunrise.
- strken 2y agoYour perceived inability to follow the advice because you live too close to the poles does not mean the advice itself is wrong, and definitely doesn't mean it's stupid. Many people in similar climates to you use sun lamps during winter, for example.
- mrweasel 2y agoIt's not wrong, but I still think it's stupid, because of how it's normally stated. I've never heard it presented as "if your location allows it" or "We understand that that isn't an option for large parts of the world so here an alternative". People have been living in this part of the world for thousands of years, without sun lamps, it might be good if you can get it, but sun light first thing in the morning certainly isn't a requirement. It might be good thing to do, but as general advise, it's has a pretty obviously flaw. That is NEVER address by the type of people who brings us this advise and to me that hurt credibility. "Get sun light into your eyes first thing in the morning", perfect, I'll just sleep until 10.
- strken 2y ago
- imaginationra 2y agoAdult here that NEVER used any kind of mobile phone/tablet- never even had a flip/dumb phone. I do programming amongst other creative computer based things- the thing I've noticed between me and the normal phone/tablet human- is the ability to focus. I can focus for hours, weeks, months, years on tasks etc. Everyone around me feels like focus wimps- they focus for 15 minutes or an hour and are proud of themselves and want some kind of pat on the back. They even use apps on the devices to "help them focus" its hilarious. I don't use any medications at all or nootropics/drugs for focus either btw. These devices destroyed peoples ability to focus amongst a myriad of other things. The solution to me seems very simple. Stop using them BUT thats like telling a heroin addict to just put down the needle. They can't do it- and neither can you (shrugs) Also using phones has always seemed nerdy/dorky- no matter who the person is- when I see someone using a mobile phone they seem like a dweeb- like whatever aura they had fades away and they just become cringey. It doesn't matter if their screen is cracked or what case they have- there is no way to be cool while using a mobile phone- just a sea of dorks with broken brains begging for more.
- pooingcode 2y agoWhile incredible sounding to never use a mobile phone I find it hard to believe given societal restraints. It’s more common than no that homeless people have a cellphone, at least in westernized countries. This is because phones are seen as a basic need. How is it possible you could make by as a working professional without ever using a mobile phone?
- ainiriand 2y agoYou should be really fun at parties!
- Roark66 2y agoAdult here that has always had a device with a screen since they first became available. From a black and white Palm which required learning a special cursive script to write quicker, through iPhones of the 3G era to latest Samsungs today. I spend many hours "with screens" every day in addition to a programming job. Before portable devices I always had a computer from age 10 when I got my first 8 bit computer. I was glued to screens ever since. I never had problems with focusing on tasks. In fact when I have a particularly interesting thing I'm doing, unless I actively remind myself to have breaks I'll forget to eat and drink for many hours. So there's my anecdote :-)
- falcor84 2y ago> excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours It's just so arbitrary
- Ekaros 2y agoI'm more thinking that it is not the medium(as in screens). But the content. Which make it harmful. Social media even something like HN is tiny chunks of dopamine rushes. Same effect could be achieved by TV channel surfing or even by audio. Just have to split it up small enough. And why not even gambling like blackjack, craps or roulette? Many of work task done on screens are much longer like writing or editing document. Maybe something like iterative debugging or coding could also be partly harmful. Or chat messages...
- Roark66 2y agoYou can't make conclusions based on that... At best these studies are a start to show where proper studies should be conducted. You may as well measure an impact of looking at printed paper. What about the impact of the actual activity you're having? It is completely different to mindlessly watch TV, or a YouTube stream vs playing games (online or offline). Then within games there are more and less intellectual or dexterity based ones and so on. There is social interaction or just exploring the game world. And so on.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago> The negative effects of screen time are insidious because you can’t see what’s happening in your brain as you’re staring at the screen Well, I can feel it. It's subtle but especially in comparison to screen-less activities I can _feel_ that I am doing something that impairs my mental health. (Doom) scrolling, binging on youtube etc. > Rather than looking at our phones upon waking, Loeffler recommends starting each morning looking at the horizon or an object outside and far away. Looking at the sky - okay. But looking at the horizon? That's a bit unrealistic. I'd argue that you could also have a plant. And the first thing you do after waking up is watering it and checking its health. Just as an idea for folks like me who can't see the horizon from their apartment. > Since the eyes are directly connected to the brain The eyes are actually a part of the brain. > This rule suggests that individuals look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes of the day. This is one of those totally ridiculous health rules. Not even worth talking about it. My suggestion would be to embrace a more dynamic work style. I'm working in front of a computer - technically for 8 hours a day. But I'm walking around _all_ _the_ _time_. Not because I think I should - but because it just feels right. > This study found that excessive screen time can hinder sleep, especially when looking at screens late at night. This I can confirm 100%. I don't even think that the screen's light is the biggest issue. For me it's more the content I tend to read and consume lying in bed, half-tired. > One of the biggest issues with picking up the phone right away in the morning is that when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat,” says Loeffler. “You wouldn’t want to wake up and look a bear in the face every morning. On a physiological level, it’s the same thing. I call BS on that. There are many reasons why not to take up the phone first thing in the morning. In fact that is why I use a separate alarm-clock (no need to handle my phone right before bed time and no need to take it up right after waking up) and I put my phone into flight-mode. So, there won't even be any notifications irking me. But this theory feels like what "scientists" come up with just to come up with something. Very shallow article but good reminder to again put a little attention to discipline around phone usage.
- peteforde 2y agoLost me in the second paragraph: > excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours Oh, is that how we define it? What are work hours, how do my eyes and brain know then they've ended, and why does the author default to assuming that employers should have first rights on this apparently finite resource?
- ergonaught 2y ago> excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours Why would "work hours" have anything to do with this? They can't make it through a second paragraph before demonstrating that the thinking that contributed to this is garbage. Why would I read more? Spoiler: I didn't.
- insane_dreamer 2y agothe effects of excessive "screen time" (primarily meant to mean scrolling through social media, playing games on a mobile device (phone/tablet), not sitting at a computer doing work), may be harder to established in adults, but it's been pretty well established in teens by measuring the correlation between screen time and test scores, primarily stemming from high schoolers lack of ability to focus (short attention spans).
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- clinjar 2y ago"Instead, we suggest engaging in a lifestyle medicine activity upon waking to promote whole-body health" For me, keeping a book next to my phone has been a game changer. We recently built a whole feature in our screen time app around this concept. When we onboard users we ask them to select a number of "scroll replacements" — these are simple things you can substitute for scrolling, like going outside or reading. The app will block you from scrolling and direct you towards a chosen replacement. One I make the split second decision to pick up the book it's easy to stay there. That single moment of decision can make a big impact. (I'm the founder of an app called Roots)
- codethief 2y agoDo you have plans to release an Android version of your app, as well?
- Diesel555 2y agoWhile I agree the conclusion of the article is likely accurate, the arguments lack warrant. “Since the eyes are directly connected to the brain, Loeffler encourages us to think about our eye health to ensure overall brain health.” My arm is also connected to the brain. We can argue the definition of direct. Warrant connects the evidence to the claim. This article lacks warrant in many places.