In my experience, weekends with too much screen time are not satisfying. If I lock away my phone and internet, I feel like I’m resting my brain. Watching YouTube doesn’t rest my brain. I’ve spent 10 hours watching YouTube on a Saturday before and felt awful afterward. I think I totally fried my brain. On the other hand, if I read a book, I feel good afterward. The University of Sussex did a study that reported a 68% reduction in stress when we read a book.
With enough time offline, I feel happier and have moments of “living in the present,” as cheesy as it may sound. I even started to enjoy some of my chores, which surprised me.
This all ties into our behavior reward system. When I stop frying my dopamine receptors with too much input, and stop giving into the apps that want to be fiendishly consumed, I find genuine happiness in everyday things again.
If I know in advance that someone wants to video chat, or my friends want to play video games at a particular time, I welcome it because it’s social time. There’s a good time to watch a movie or TV show too, especially with others. Relationships are essential to our happiness. Other than that, less screen time, especially my iPhone, make my life better.
“No exceptions – all screen activities linked to less happiness, all nonscreen activities linked to more happiness.” https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
– Naval on Twitter (@naval)