Phone Diet vs Social Media Diet: What an 8-Day Experiment Found

Most advice about taking a break from your phone is really advice about social media. A team at the University of California, Riverside, tested both at once: what happens when people cut back on their whole phone, and what happens when they only quit the feeds. The phone won, though not by as much as you might expect.

What the researchers did

The study, by Lisa C. Walsh, Annie Regan, Karynna Okabe-Miyamoto and Sonja Lyubomirsky, was published in PLOS ONE in 2024, and its hypotheses were registered in advance. The participants were undergraduates who owned an iPhone with Screen Time and used social media at least four to six times a week. To keep expectations from coloring the results, the study was presented to them as a "Daily Habits Study."

After a first lab visit, the 338 students who counted in the analysis (average age 19, about four in five of them women) were randomly assigned to one of four groups:

• Digital Diet (76 people): use the smartphone as little as possible. Practical uses, such as GPS directions or answering work email, were allowed; apps that weren't necessary, from Facebook to games and streaming, were not.
• Social Diet (67): stop using social media, with tips such as a Screen Time limit or deleting the apps.
• Water Diet (115): use less water when washing and showering, a comparison group that made an effort too, but not with their phones.
• No Diet (80): carry on as usual.

The diets lasted about eight days on average (seven to thirteen). At both lab visits, everyone answered questions about their well-being, and research assistants recorded their iPhone's Screen Time figures from screenshots, so phone use was measured, not just estimated. The data were collected from February 2019 to March 2020.

What they found

Both diet groups cut back. The Digital Diet group used their iPhones about 115 minutes a day less than before, by the Screen Time figures, and the Social Diet group cut their social media by about 68 minutes a day.

Cutting back on the phone helped on several fronts. Compared with both comparison groups, the Digital Diet group reported higher life satisfaction, mindful attention, self-esteem, and a greater sense of autonomy and competence, along with less loneliness and stress.

Quitting social media alone did little. Its only gain over both comparison groups was more mindful attention. Compared with the group that changed nothing, it even came with fewer positive emotions and more negative ones, which the authors call a backfiring effect.

Some things didn't move at all. Neither diet changed depressive symptoms, everyday happiness or self-rated health compared with the comparison groups. The authors describe the effects they did find as small, but not tiny.

What the study can't tell you

The participants were students at one American university, mostly women, nearly all born in 1995 or later, so the results may not hold for older adults. They didn't choose to cut back; they were assigned to it. The authors suggest that people who decide to cut back on their own may benefit too, but this study can't show it.

Nobody got near zero. At the end, the Digital Diet group still used their iPhones about 211 minutes a day, and the Social Diet group still spent about 50 minutes a day on social media. The analysis also left out 33 people in the two diet groups whose use went up rather than down, so the results describe people who at least tried. Everything besides phone use was self-reported, and eight days says nothing about what happens over months.

What it means for your phone

The lesson isn't that social media is harmless. It's that the whole phone may be the better target than any single app, and that you don't have to give up the useful parts to get the benefit: the Digital Diet kept directions and work email.

If you're planning a break, our guide to a digital detox turns this into a plan, and the one on a social media detox covers the trials of feed-only breaks. To make the cut hold after the week is over, Unrotten gives the apps you choose a daily limit with its Less scrolling goal and locks them with Apple's Screen Time shield once the time is used up, while maps, email and everything else keep working.