One Hour Less a Day, or a Week Off? The Smartphone 'Sweet Spot' Study

If you want to use your phone less, should you quit for a while or just cut back? A team at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany put the two side by side, and the answer cuts against the idea that only a clean break works.

What the researchers did

The study, by Julia Brailovskaia and colleagues, was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. It recruited 619 smartphone users in Germany and randomly split them into three groups:

• Abstinence: 200 people gave up their smartphone completely for seven days.
• Reduction: 226 people used their smartphone one hour less each day.
• Control: 193 people used their phone as usual.

Everyone answered online surveys four times: before the intervention, right after it, one month later and four months later. The surveys asked about smartphone use (how much, how intensely, and signs of problematic use), life satisfaction, symptoms of depression and anxiety, physical activity and smoking.

What they found

Both changes helped. People in the abstinence and reduction groups used their phones less intensely, showed fewer signs of problematic use and reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Their life satisfaction rose, and so did the time they spent being physically active.

The bigger finding was about what lasted. Most effects were stronger, and more stable over the four months, in the group that cut back by an hour than in the group that quit for a week. Ruhr University's own summary of the study reports that four months later, the abstinence group used their phones about 38 minutes less a day than before, and the reduction group about 45 minutes less. In the reduction group only, smokers also smoked fewer cigarettes a day.

The authors' conclusion is in the title: there may be a "sweet spot" of smartphone use, and complete abstinence isn't necessary to feel better.

What the study can't tell you

Every outcome was self-reported in online surveys, including how much people used their phones, and people's estimates of their own phone use are often off. Participants also knew which group they were in, so their expectations could have shaped their answers. And this was one sample of German smartphone users. It can't say whether one hour is the ideal amount for everyone, only that an hour less a day beat a week off in this group.

What it means for your phone

Aim for less, not zero. An hour a day is a concrete target you can keep up, and in this study it lasted longer than a dramatic week off.

• Check your real number first. Screen Time, in Settings, shows your daily average. Take an hour off that.
• Cut where the time disappears. Start with the one or two apps that take the most, not the phone as a whole.
• Make the hour hold on bad days. A limit you can dismiss with one tap is easy to dismiss at 11 p.m.

That's how Unrotten approaches it: the Less scrolling goal gives the apps you choose a daily limit, and when it's used up, Apple's Screen Time shield locks them until the day resets, with no "ignore limit" button. For more ways to cut back without quitting, read how to stop doomscrolling or our guide to phone addiction.