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Many of us breathe a sigh of relief when we watch an old movie, or series, that lacks smartphones. Why is instant communication with virtually anyone on the planet so anxiety-provoking? Perhaps electronic interchange fails our evolved social needs and triggers helplessness instead.
The Clinical Evidence Is Overwhelming
Internet communication began on computers but employs many other devices such as game consoles, tablets, and smart TVs. Why are smartphones singled out as such a threat that some school districts are banning them?
The key advantage and the key risk posed by personal phones hooked to the Internet is convenience. They are easy to carry around so that users can remain on their screens for most of their waking lives. In addition to being constantly available, smartphones are addictive, at least in the everyday sense that people can't stop using them. They also tap into the dopaminergic neurotransmitter systems that underlie addiction to substances as well as gambling and problem shopping.
Virtually every domain of clinical psychology finds that smartphones threaten our psychological well-being. Findings include increased anxiety, depression, suicide, bullying, eating disorders, sexual violence, and loneliness, together with learning problems, and deficits in creativity.
The problem is not the device itself but the digital ecosystem to which users are exposed. Why is digital communication so dangerous to our sanity?
Early animal studies revealed that stressful events are aggravated by being unpredictable and uncontrollable. These findings offer insight into the stressful aspects of smartphone usage.
Unpredictability and Everyday Chaos
Animal researchers established that unpleasant events are more upsetting if they are unpredictable or uncontrollable. If a warning light tells a subject they are about to hear an unpleasant noise, they relax when the light is off. If a subject can turn off the unpleasant event by pushing a lever, it is made less upsetting by being controllable.
If unpleasant events in our lives are unpredictable, or uncontrollable, they evoke anxiety. Conversely, being able to plan one's day and choose what to do induces calmness and relaxation.
One striking feature of daily life in the age of the smartphone is that what happens is kinetic. It unfolds rapidly based on input from various sources. A group of friends might have a vague plan to eat out together. They agree on a particular establishment via their WhatsApp group. The first person to arrive informs them that there is a wait time of an hour so they reconsider. They pick another eatery but there are no vegan options on the menu.
The plethora of information available on smartphones may help us to avoid mistakes but it can also make our lives chaotically unpredictable, and potentially stressful. Smartphones can also bring unpleasant experiences over which we have no control.
Uncontrollable Unpleasant Events
Smartphones connect us to distressing events around the globe. My awareness of the January 6 riot in the Capitol came through a message from a relative in Ireland while I was walking in a tranquil nature reserve. Much as we might wish to cultivate tranquility, bad news always finds us in the era of the smartphone.
At an individual level, unpleasant events include disparaging comments that a person can encounter at any time in their social media feeds. Users are vulnerable to many forms of online bullying, including insulting reactions to their posts, disparaging comments about their appearance, sexting, and stalking.
Hostile material stays online as a constant irritant and may be damaging to a person's reputation and job prospects. Many vulnerable people are made so anxious by the online world that their mental state resembles that of a combat veteran (1).
Unfortunately, the engagement algorithms that organize social media feeds prioritize hostile, or anxiety-provoking material in addition to promoting online addiction (2). Even when communications are pleasant, their frequency contributes to a sense of always being “on” and unable to relax.
Being active on social media exposes users to uncontrollable unpleasant experiences. They also have less time for real-world social contact.
Emojis, Memes, and Minimal Communication
Our species evolved in contexts where there was continuous social contact and where personal communication was critical to survival and reproductive success. Cooperation was critical to protecting children in a dangerous world and gathering food was very much a cooperative endeavor.
Close physical contact was not only essential for survival but also contributed to health and well-being, given that oxytocin – the hormone released in social contacts – is a potent anti-stress hormone. Being continuously active online mimics one dimension of ancestral sociability but it is clearly not calming (1). Online communication has become more impersonal over time with message responses getting selected from a menu and stone-cold emojis and memes replacing spontaneous warm words from real people whom we can touch.
References
1 Haidt, Jonathan (2024), The anxious generation. London: Allen Lane
2 Fisher, M. (2022). The chaos machine: The inside story of how social media rewired our minds, and our world. Boston, MA: Little Brown.
