Mindfulness helps people avoid unhealthy phone habits

Smartphones sit close by for much of the day, and picking them up feels less like a choice and more like a reflex. 

Researchers are now finding that people who practice mindfulness in everyday life tend to have less trouble keeping their phone use in balance.

In one large review, psychologists combined 61 earlier studies that tracked more than 38,000 people in 11 countries. 

Across those projects, people who were more mindful in life were less likely to say their phone use was hurting sleep, work, or relationships.

Problematic smartphone use

The work was led by Dr. Susan Holtzman, a health psychologist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan campus in Kelowna, Canada. 

Her research focuses on how everyday habits and coping strategies, including smartphone use, relate to mental and physical health.

Smartphones guide us, connect us, and even handle our payments. But researchers warn about problematic smartphone use (PSU) – patterns of compulsive checking that disrupt daily life and persist even when people try to cut back.

Mindfulness and phone risks today

According to a recent estimate, smartphones are used by about 4.9 billion people worldwide. 

If only a fraction of those users feel their phone is crowding out sleep, conversation, or study time, that still adds up to a major public health concern.

Clinicians use the term nomophobia to describe anxiety when people are cut off from phone connectivity through lost signal or a dead battery. 

People who report this pattern also tend to describe sleep disruption, neck or shoulder pain, and trouble focusing on school or work tasks.

Mindfulness can change phone habits

Mindfulness is a steady, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. In the studies reviewed by Dr. Holtzman, it was usually measured with short surveys about everyday attention.

When practicing mindfulness, people are asked to notice thoughts, feelings, and sensations – and let them come and go without reacting.

Past research on attention and health suggests that mindful people tend to report fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression and more stable moods. 

They also seem less caught in rumination, repetitive negative thinking that circles the same worries again and again.

Independent teams are seeing the pattern, and one meta-analysis of 29 studies reports a negative link between mindfulness scores and problematic phone use. 

A stronger sense of control

Using six research databases, Dr. Holtzman and her colleagues searched all available studies up to 2024 that measured both mindfulness and problematic smartphone use.

Altogether, the analysis included 61 independent samples and 38,802 participants – mostly young adults. By pooling the data, the team estimated an effect size near r = -0.30, a single number that sums up strength.

Several of the studies suggested that more mindful people have fewer anxiety and depression symptoms and a stronger sense of control over daily choices. 

A few studies linked mindfulness to lower experiential avoidance – efforts to push away uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. This appeared alongside healthier phone use.

How attention shifts

The findings fit with what many phone users report. Checking often starts as a quick way to handle boredom or stress, and gradually turns into the response whenever there is a free moment.

Phones and apps are carefully tuned to reward fast taps and swipes, which keeps attention locked to the screen with alerts, badges, and endless scroll. 

Mindfulness training does not remove those designs, but it can help people notice urges as they appear and give themselves a few seconds to decide whether to follow them.

Dr. Holtzman points out that this small pause can be enough to let an urge crest and pass, rather than pulling the person into another long scroll session. 

Over time, repeatedly choosing values like sleep, focus, or face to face conversation instead of the next notification can slowly reshape phone habits.

Mindfulness and healthier phone use

For people who want to test ideas in daily life, Dr. Holtzman suggests experiments like pausing before unlocking the phone and naming the reason for picking it up. 

She also encourages a phone audit – deciding which apps support priorities – and then setting limits, moving icons, or deleting the ones that mostly waste time.

One trial among college students found that a 30 minute mindfulness session reduced problematic smartphone scores and improved self-control. 

That kind of result suggests that even brief, guided practice can help people feel less pulled around by notifications and more able to use phones on purpose.

For some, the key step is simply asking a quiet question before each check: is this visit driven by a real need, or just a habit loop firing again. 

Over days and weeks, that gentle curiosity about attention can support healthier digital routines without requiring anyone to give up their phone entirely.

The study is published in the journal Mindfulness.

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