When people talk about digital detoxes, you might begin to dream about a luxurious retreat of yoga classes and unlimited smoothie bowls – but it can also be as simple switching your phone off for an hour in the evening.
Wellbeing gurus tend to hail this practice as beneficial for reconnecting with the world and improving our mental health, but what impact can it have on our brains?
What impact does screen time have on our brain chemistry?
Using phones regularly, particularly scrolling on social media, can increase the levels of dopamine released in the brain.
“When we look at the things people typically consume through screen time, it includes dopamine-driven high reward activities like scrolling, social media and short clips,” says neurological physio and wellbeing coach for Youth Sport Trust, Rachael Mackenzie.
“These activities can gradually alter the way that the dopamine reward system responds to the environment. This can affect our ability to manage impulse and emotion control and regulation.”
The efficiency of our devices giving us the ability to gain information at the press of a button may also affect our cognitive capacities.
“The reliance on our phones means that finding pleasure in tasks that require more concentration, or a bit more mindful or require attention focus becomes a little harder,” explains Mackenzie. “It takes away our need to store and retrieve information for ourselves.
“So that building of the hippocampus, the memory part of the brain, is almost negated because we have that information available to us at any moment and don’t need to try and seek and store information in the same way that we would have done previously.”
If you feel tense while doomscrolling, your fight or flight system may have been triggered by the content you are consuming.
“We should experience a fluctuation between that fight and flight, and rest and reflect pattern naturally over a day,” explains Mackenzie. “But, when we are attached to our screen, we tend to sit in that heightened fight and flight space a little bit more without that reflect and rest phase that we are designed to have.
“There are all sorts of physiological consequences to being in that fight and flight state more often than we are designed to be that could have long term consequences on our mental and physical health,” warns the neurological physio.
This could have a bigger impact on children, as their brains are still developing.
“What we do on a daily basis influences the shape of that brain architecture and the plasticity of adolescents and children’s brains is very rapid,” says Mackenzie. “Therefore it can be changed much more significantly by a single event or repetition of small impact events.”
Could a digital detox help?
Mackenzie recommends digital detoxes for her clients and suggests they are a great way to help reset our brains and minds.
“If you have a day or hour where you delete Instagram, or whatever your social media of choice is, we move away from that reliance of having to be constantly stimulated and can instead build moments of natural mindfulness into the day,” she explains.
“Time away from screens also give the added benefit of helping reset and regulate nervous system so it isn’t in a constant state of fight and flight.”
People may also benefit from engaging in other activities, such as mindfulness or exercise during their digital detox.
“What is important about this disengagement (the detox) is that we are actively looking to engage in tasks which are going to help create more positive habits,” advises Mackenzie.
Switching off our smartphones might also enhance our productivity at work.
“If we are constantly engaged with our phone, even if we aren’t looking at it and it is present and drawing our attention, then performance across a whole range of cognitive measures is reduced. When we remove that distraction, we can improve that focus time it takes to do work and the quality of that work.”
