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Why are people addicted to their phones and social media? | Staying Healthy
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Oct 7, 2024
An addictions expert has called for a national mobile device detox to counter a ‘worrying’ rise in screen addiction rehab treatment enquiries. Across the UK, the number of people seeking treatment for screen-based addictions has grown by more than 100% in three years, new figures reveal. This comes from The Priory, a specialist clinic in mental health and addiction services, which has seen 2023 treatment enquiry figures – for addictions including gaming, gambling, internet or social media, and porn addiction – show a 118 per cent increase in volume since 2020. Meanwhile, previous studies have estimated that, globally, 210 million people suffer from internet and social media addiction. Continue reading ⬇️ https://www.cityam.com/surge-in-rehab-treatment-for-the-worlds-most-widespread-bad-habit/ Get more of City A.M. ⬇️ 🌐 http://www.cityam.com X(formerly Twitter): http://twitter.com/CityAM Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cityam Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/city_am LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/cityam #mentalhealth #health #healthylifestyle #healthtips #wellness #wellnesstips #healthandwellness #phoneaddiction #phoneaddict #socialmedia #socialmediaaddiction #addiction #detox #screen #screenaddiction #stayinghealthy
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We're basically in a state of constant overstimulation because we're constantly checking our phones
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hit with notifications, emails, whatever it is. So it's really, when you take that away, it takes about 24 hours, but the mind just settles down
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But what it's about is changing your perception, you know, so once you've spent three days off your phone
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you realise that the world doesn't end when you spend three days off line. We're all addicted to our devices in some degree
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So I actually came from my own, I would say, burnout, but was one of the world. working for a tech startup before and was flying around the world to set up these offices
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living the classic busy London life, spending a lot of time with my phone, and just started to, I think, get burnt out with it and really started to lose my joy for life
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And then a friend recommended a silent retreat in the Himalayas in 2019
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which was at this Buddhist temple onbridge on top of a mountain. And I initially kind of laughed it off
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I thought, I can't do that. What were the guys at work think? Eventually got myself out there, and it was literally 10 days on top of the time
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top of a mountain and the best thing about it is when you get there they take your phone off you
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and you spend 10 days cut off from the outside world. So very cliche but I came back from that
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and quit my job a week later and that was off the back of a conversation with Ben who's my
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co-founder so we used to work together at the tech startup and Ben is not the kind of guy you'd find
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a silent retreat anytime seen. We spoke about how there's a lot of stigma around retreats and meditation
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and so much the benefit is just getting people offline and into nature so it was really from
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that the idea was born. Amazing. And obviously you come from a background where you were always using your phone
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Did you have any kind of like, you know, the first couple of days, how did you feel kind of going
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from having that to having nothing? For sure. I mean, it's what we see now when people come and do the experience, which is for that first
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day you're actually a bit more anxious because we're so dependent on our phone that, you know
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you almost feel like you've lost the limb. So classic the phantom buzz in the pocket, etc
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But then after about 24 hours, the mind really starts to settle down
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And we access this deep sense of calm. And that fundamentally is how we're designed to operate
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Like humans aren't designed to be the kind of nervous balls of stress
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that we go through our lives today. Because we're basically in a state of constant overstimulation
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because we're constantly checking our phones, hit with notifications, emails, whatever it is
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So it's really, when you take that away, it takes about 24 hours, but the mind just settles down and we access this
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sense of calm. Can you tell us a wee bit more about the retreats then you've got a couple close to
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London and you've got a couple across the UK as well don't you? Yeah for sure so we have 16
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cabins close to London and then four up north in north of Wales and Cheshire and it's always three
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nights so the reason behind that is so that people have the proper time to switch off upon arrival
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you can either go by yourself or as a couple so about 80% of the the guests who come with a partner
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or a friend and upon arrival you literally padlock your phone in a box you've got a key in a sealed envelope
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and then we give you a map and a Nokia and leave you to it for three nights and so you know people
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really just keep it simple they walk a lot read a lot cook a lot so it really just about doing those things really well and and i guess making space for them Reconnecting with nature as well Exactly They based in quite a nice setting as well like you tell us more about the area that they based in
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The whole experience is about getting people offline into nature. So they're all in different locations out in the English countryside, but you know we have cabins in the forest, we have cabins near lakes, you know, in fields
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So it's really just about getting people out there. And then it's amazing once you get out into the countryside
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just how many amazing places there are to walk and hike and things to see, et cetera
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So have been, I think, I'm obviously living in London at the moment
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but it's been really amazing while building this business to go and see all the beautiful parts of the country
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Our work starting to offer this more as a kind of something that people can get involved in
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has it become a career trying to get this into more works, so people can offer this to employees as a kind of, you know, gets a treat
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or even like working from home like somewhere like that as well
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Yeah, so not working from home because they've got their laptop way. What we have found is a whole bunch of companies actually got in touch with us last year
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about offering it as an employee benefit. So we have, I think, over 20 companies now that will gift each of their employees one stay per year
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just as a benefit because I think it sends that message of we actually want you to not only go away
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but also get offline, get off your emails, all that kind of thing. So there's been some really interesting use cases for it
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So we have another company that gives it to everyone as they pass probation and then everyone
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when they hit their two year anniversary. So it's just I think a really different way for a company to give a gift, reward their
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employee, etc. And also just send that message that they actually do want them to look after themselves
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So yeah, that's been a really nice surprise and just something that's emerged organically. Thanks
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And do you think with people working from home they are becoming more addicted
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to tech nowadays, like people feel like they always need to be on alert and they kind of need
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this now to kind of just like get away from it properly. Yeah, I think a lot of the boundaries
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they're getting more and more faded so it's harder, you know, I mean it's addicted. We're all
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addicted to our devices in some degree and it is just harder now that we're working from home
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because you haven't got that line anymore. I mean back in the day before you had smartphones
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and when you're on PCs you could literally switch off your PC at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock and
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and then go home and you couldn't be online. But now you're spending all day
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maybe sitting at the same table that you're going to be at in the evening, eating dinner, all this kind of stuff
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So we just build that habit of constantly checking, constantly checking email, constantly checking WhatsApp
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So I think it is really hard. But I also think it's important not to beat ourselves up about it
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because I think a lot of what makes it tricky is we then have this narrative
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oh my God, you know, so bad with my phone. and there's a bit of a kind of self-hating cycle
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And so I think it's important to not beat yourself up. Like, we're all addicted to our devices
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and just kind of start small, put it in a drawer, spend half an hour offline and just build from there
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Why do you think people are so addicted nowadays that you're going to be worse? What's your opinion on that
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Yeah well I mean it just addictive technology I guess the way you know we fundamentally as humans are built for a world of scarcity So if you think about you know we fundamentally haven changed much since we were hunter in that world
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You know, food is scarce, everything, entertainment is scarce. So when, so we have these systems that in today's day and age, when you have abundance
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so you have abundance of food, abundance of thrills, dopamine rushes, all of these things
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our bodies are built to capitalize on that. feels good to get likes on a social media post is because we're being rewarded with dopamine
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So that in itself makes it addictive. So I think it's, you know, we fundamentally aren't designed
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for living in this day and age. Like it is tricky. I think a lot of the problems, the mental
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health problems, the physical health problems of today's age come from, you know, just modern
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society. So I think it's really just about stripping that back and recognizing how to deal with
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that because there's so many wonderful things that modern society does bring and so many
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amazing technological advances but I think we're still just in that that phase especially
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with you know phones and all of these kind of things of figuring out what how we can
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deal with that in a way that is healthy and helps us I think I'm not sure if it's true or not
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but someone told me that it was 30 years after the car came out that the seatbelt came out
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you know so it's kind of this similar thing where we've got this amazing new
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technology that has completely transformed how we live and how we operate and so
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now I think it's just we're going through that period of figuring out how to deal
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with that so aside from you know social media what would you see are the other
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main factors that drive people to phone addiction do you have any research or
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anything or kind of the main visitors that come to you guys yeah for sure so I
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mean over half of UK adults and now spending 11 hours a day or more
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on screens of some kind. So it really is most of our days
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So it's a lot of things, it's, you know, work is obviously a huge one
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but also entertainment as well. So whether it's video games or watching Netflix
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or whatever it is, like everything we now do is on our devices
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And I think another trend that we've seen, especially in the last year or so
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people are stressed out, people are burnt out. And I think when we are stressed and, you know
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we're not ourselves, then it's much easier to develop these addictive habits
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And after people come away from one of the retreats, what are the kind of main positives that they feel from it
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For sure. So it really is just that shift in perspective to realising that this is available to them
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it's available to all of us, and that it's okay, the world doesn't end
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And I think it just takes some of the edge off life. And then there's also the physical benefits
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Like people do come out. to check people in, we used to clean the first cabin, me and my co-founder, we'd check people
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in and check them out after three days. And they'd literally come out looking 10 years younger
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So you can just see the stress and the weight of life today drop off. So I think it's really
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important and I think we massively underestimate just how much we carrying with us all the time And do you get any proper like social media addicts coming in And they have a proper detox
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Like, have you had anyone like that that are proper, like addicts in that sense
10:00
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, I think, you know, we all are a little bit. So, yeah, I don't want to out anyone in particular
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But, yeah, I mean, we have a lot of people who I think it opens their own eyes to it
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because you don't realize until you take it away, just what part it's playing
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You go to left something up. Yeah. It's just, you can't actually left up
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100%. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think what we do, because, you know
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some of the criticism we got at the start was that, oh, you can't change your habits in three days. And it's true, like, you know
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it takes 20 days or 60 days or whatever it is to change your habit. But what it's about is changing your perception
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you know, so once you've spent three days off your phone, you realize that the world doesn't end
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when you spend three days offline. And, you know, that you can access
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this sense of calm and destimulate just by taking it away. So it's really about starting people on that journey
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So what we see is when people come and stay, that will then be the catalyst for them to start implementing changes at home
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and come back and stay with us. We'll do other experiences like this. So it's really the momentum is in the direction of
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in society of us spending more and more time online. It's just about sending that momentum in another direction
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And have you had any success stories that have really kind of stood out to you
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in the time that you've had? Yeah, I mean, I think the ones I love are just those, you know
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especially, we've got a lot of individuals, but also especially couples where they will then implement that as part of their life
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So I think we have a lot of couples who come back
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and now they do things like every week they'll go to a restaurant and leave their phones at home
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And that's just amazing to see because it's those kind of stories that
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like that's how we can start to move, society in a different direction. It's these little things. They tell their friends and then
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they think maybe we should try this. It's just about building on that. So yeah, I think it's the
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people who have really made a habit of it. We have people who come back every three or four months
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and have come, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times now. So, yeah, exactly. So that's
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really good to see. Like, people who really love it and are making the time to do it and seeing the
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benefits. Any plans moving forward? For sure. I mean, I mean, It feels like we're super early in something that's going to be massive
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Like I feel like over the next decade, this is just the need for this is just going to grow and grow and grow
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And again, our goal, I feel like society is much more malleable than we think
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And we are heading towards this society of everything, being online all the time
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And our goal is not to get rid of the technology, of course, but it's just to move society in a slightly different direction
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where we can normalise going and spending three nights offline somewhere. and we're not always so reachable all the time and responding straight away
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And so I think that is very much our goal. We've got very exciting plans for this year
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So more cabins, more locations, more countries maybe, and we'll go from there
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Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate you talking through everything, getting me all set for me visiting this weekend as well
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Thank you so much. Have a wonderful time
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