Do our phones really rot our brains? Here’s what the science says

Is doomscrolling on your phone unhealthy for your brain? Oxford University Press’s word of the year, “brain rot,” seems to suggest so. It defines the condition as the “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” 

The key word, though, is “supposed,” as there is there is no such thing as mindless scrolling, says Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, the author of The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience and a Harvard physician who specializes in stress.

“’Brain rot’ is not a word or phrase that I would use as a physician, because it connotes that our brains are passively withering away,” she says. “Scientifically what is happening to your brain when you sit and scroll and scroll is not passive. [Scrolling] has a very active effect on your brain, and it signals all sorts of hormones and chemical cascades and neural circuits.” 

While that’s a relief, we do love our digital devices—maybe too much. According to a recent survey by Reviews.org, Americans pick up their phones an average of 205 times a day. Eighty percent check their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up, and 43% consider themselves to be addicted. 

Having a true addiction to your phone is rare, says Nerurkar. What’s common, though, is “popcorn brain,” a term coined by University of Wisconsin researcher David Levy.

“Popcorn brain is the sensation of your brain popping when you spend too much time online,” explains Nerurkar. “It’s when you’re chronically online, overconsuming. It has an effect on your sleep, your mood, your emotional reactivity, irritability, fatigue, and in some cases, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.”

Finding balance

If you feel popcorn-y, finding a sene of balance can help. But where do you start? Howard Lewis, author of Leave Your Phone at the Door: The Joy of OFFLINE, says it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s a growing fear of missing out.  

“I think there’s a fear of being irrelevant,” he says. “The advent of social media has made the problem much worse. People used to get their news from newspapers, and the process could take three or four days. Now, if you wait more than three or four hours, there is a sense that you’re not very relevant, and I think that’s a big error of judgment.”

There’s a fine line between consuming and overconsuming, and the first thing to do is to cut yourself some slack about your phone habit. Doomscrolling is a primal urge, says Nerurkar.

“Your brain is governed by the amygdala, and the main purpose of your amygdala is survival and self-preservation,” she explains. “Back when we were all cave people, there would be a night watchman who would scan for danger while the others slept. In modern times, we are all our own night watchman. The modern equivalent of scanning for danger is scrolling.”

To find balance, you need to get your prefrontal cortex online. This is the part of the brain that governs strategic thinking, complex problem-solving, and “adulting,” says Nerurkar. 

“Building healthy phone habits intentionally dials it down,” she says. “The goal is to become more intentional with your media use. The truth is that the environment and big tech and the news is going to continue. Your brain and body is doing exactly what it was intended to do when you’re feeling stressed. It’s not about abstinence from our devices. It’s about creating some digital boundaries to preserve your mental health while remaining informed to what’s happening in the world.”

How to build healthier habits with your phone

Nerurkar teamed up with the mental health app Calm to create a five-part series called “Building Healthier Phone Habits.” The first step toward becoming more intentional about your media consumption is an awareness of your current state. Start by monitoring a three- to four-hour block of time. Put a pen and paper nearby and every time you have the urge to pick up your phone, create a tally mark. At the end of the time block, identify how many times you felt like reaching for your phone.

Next, address the urge with a three-second brain reset exercise called “Stop, Breathe, Be,” which helps you strengthen your mind-body connection. 

“Instead of giving into the impulse to reach for your phone, stop, take a deep breath in and out, and be in the moment,” says Nerurkar. “What it does over time is it decreases the volume of your amygdala and gets that prefrontal cortex back online.”

Another strategy is leveraging the grayscale of your phone. Nerurkar recommends switching your phone off color mode and into black-and-white mode. Go to your Settings page. Tap on “Accessibility” and then “Display and Text Size.” Switch your color filters to grayscale. You can easily toggle the grayscale on and off.

“What it does is it makes scrolling less addictive, less enticing,” says Nerurkar. “Good times to use grayscale are when you’re trying to focus on a task at work, but you notice that you keep reaching for your phone and you’re not able to finish that task. It’s a visual boundary that you’re creating.”

Building healthier phone habits is a process, so give yourself lots of grace, says Nerurkar. “Compassion, and particularly self-compassion, helps rewire the brain and decrease your reliance on your devices,” she says. “It also decreases the volume of your amygdala.”

Why detachment is important

Phones and applications may be enticing, but they offer less value than we think, says Lewis. “They do provide a sense of comfort and belonging, which is fine, but the difficult thing is that they become a replacement for adjunct and real-life conversations,” he says.

Lewis regularly hosts dinner parties where guests must leave their phones at the door. He recommends breaking the cycle of dependence by putting your phone away wherever you’re engaging with someone in person. “People have certain preconceptions about the way they should look and behave around others,” he says. “What matters most is that you give people your time and your attention in a meaningful way. By leaving your phone at the door, you are enabled to embrace life.”

Give yourself permission to be different by untethering yourself from your device, urges Lewis. “Being offline opens the door to randomness and serendipity,” he says. “Life behind a screen, in my opinion, is not real life.”

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