You pick up your phone for a quick read, and suddenly an hour has disappeared. Sound familiar?
More than half of adults say they use their phones excessively, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this summer. Of the nearly 10,000 respondents, all 18 and older, 53% said they use smartphones too much, and 36% say they use their phones “about the right amount.”
The younger the people were, the more they felt they had overused phone use — 70% among those aged 18 to 29 and 64% among those aged 30 to 49. About 42% of the 18 to 29 group said they were on their phones “almost constantly.”
Digital marketing platform Semrush estimates that people worldwide average 4 hours and 37 minutes per day on the phone — 5 hours, 16 minutes in the US — and check their phones an average of 58 times per day.
Put another way, 5 hours on your phone each day adds up to 76 full 24-hour days a year. Start Jan. 1 at midnight when the new year begins, and you won’t put your phone down until around St. Patrick’s Day.
I’m assuming these numbers aren’t very surprising, considering we use our phones for everything from shopping and reading the news to texting, scrolling social media and playing games. Once we get accustomed to having instant gratification for our finances, communication and work, it’s hard to break the cycle. But as more of us realize the consequences, we’re starting to take action.
Risks of too much device
Excessive phone use can have tragic consequences. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 3,208 people were killed in 2024 in auto accidents caused by distracted driving, which includes drivers talking or texting on the phone.
“Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds,” the NHTSA reports. “At 55 mph, that’s like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed.”
First Aid for Life, a UK-based first-aid training provider, said 41% in the UK have suffered some type of accident related to phone use. Wikipedia even has a gruesome list of selfie-related injuries and deaths.
Anxiety, stress, depression, social isolation, feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem and even thoughts of suicide and self-harm can all arise from being on devices and social media too much, according to research from Columbia University’s department of psychiatry.
The main downside of excessive screen time in the survey was reduced sleep, with 41% reporting that phone use affected how much they slept. And 34% said phone use hurt productivity, as compared to 30% who said it helped.
Try this one trick
In the Pew study, 45% said they had tried to reduce their phone use over the previous year, and 46% had not. Of those trying to cut back, only 25% rated their attempts as extremely or very successful, and 52% said they were somewhat successful.
For people using iPhones, there is a trick you can try to reduce screen time, says CNET senior writer Zachary McAuliffe.
“Try hiding iPhone apps in a folder in your App Library,” McAuliffe said. “This could prevent you from mindlessly opening apps when you’re bored, since there are more roadblocks to get to those apps. I’ve hidden a few apps on my device for this reason, and I forget I have them. Which is a nice reminder that I need to delete a few apps that I don’t use.”
CNET also has a list of five effective tech gadgets and apps to get you off that doomscrolling hamster wheel. Brick, our Editors’ Choice, is a locking device that lets you block certain apps with the press of a button and includes a timer that shows how long you’ve gone without looking at the phone.
You can also check out our recommendations for the best phone settings to stop doomscrolling.
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