Latest news with #phoneusage
CNET
16 hours ago
- CNET
Your Phone Should Always Be Face Down When It's on the Table: Here's Why
Picture this: You're having lunch with a friend at the neighborhood cafe. They're sitting in front of you, but it feels like they're not even there. Why? Because they're staring at their phone. Everyone has probably had a similar experience, whether they're the one getting phone snubbed or doing the snubbing themselves. I've been guilty of paying more attention to my screen than my companion, and I feel bad about it afterward. There's nothing wrong with replying to an urgent Slack message or pulling up a funny TikTok to share. But I know I probably spend too much time staring at screens, and a lot of that time is unhealthy doomscrolling. These days, when I'm not using my phone, I try to be more deliberate about keeping it out of sight and out of mind. If I do need to keep my phone at hand, I always have it face down. It could help save your phone battery I have a few reasons for making sure my phone screen is turned away. The first one is practical: Because my screen is face down and won't turn on for each notification, I can save a little bit of battery charge. A single notification won't mean the difference between my phone lasting the whole day or dying in the afternoon, but notifications can add up, especially if I've enabled them across all of my apps. If I'm in a lot of group chats, my screen might end up turning on dozens of times throughout the day (and that's on the low side since many teenagers have hundreds of notifications a day). It also shows that you pay attention Keeping my phone face down is also a good rule of social etiquette: If I'm hanging out with someone, I keep my screen hidden from view as a subtle way of showing that I won't be distracted by it. I don't want incoming notifications to light up my screen every few seconds, especially if I'm in a bar or other dimly lit setting. I want to keep my eyes on the person I'm talking to. "Eye contact is one of the most powerful forms of human connection. Neuroscience research indicates that when two people make direct eye contact, their brain activity begins to synchronize, supporting more effective communication and increasing empathy. This synchrony can be disrupted when attention shifts to a phone, even briefly," says Michelle Davis, clinical psychologist at Headspace. When I'm with the people I've chosen to spend time with, I want to be fully present with them. A sudden notification will tempt me to glance at, or worse, pick up my phone in the middle of a conversation. It minimizes your phone's presence I also have a more personal reason for keeping my phone face down, and I suspect that other people have had this same thought: My phone takes up too much space in my life. I mean that quite literally. My phone is bigger than it needs to be. That's been especially true since I upgraded from my iPhone Mini to a "normal-sized" iPhone. Yes, I got a much needed boost in battery life, but I also got a screen with more pixels to lure me into the next news headline or autoplaying Instagram reel. A small smartphone isn't something that really exists anymore. My phone is bigger and better at grabbing my attention. It competes against my friends and family, books and movies, the entire world outside of its 6-inch screen. It often wins. But there's still one small thing I can do to minimize its presence: I can keep the screen turned away from me whenever possible. It can sometimes feel like there's no escaping from my phone. Whether that ever changes, or phones evolve into a new form factor, I can't say. I can't control everything about my phone, but I can control whether the screen stares at me when I'm not staring at it.
CNET
a day ago
- CNET
Your Phone Should Always Be Facedown When It's on the Table: Here's Why
Picture this: You're having lunch with a friend at the neighborhood cafe. They're sitting in front of you, but it feels like they're not even there. Why? Because they're staring at their phone. Everyone has probably had a similar experience, whether they're the one getting phone snubbed or doing the snubbing themselves. I've been guilty of paying more attention to my screen than my companion, and I feel bad about it afterward. There's nothing wrong with replying to an urgent Slack message or pulling up a funny TikTok to share. But I know I probably spend too much time staring at screens, and a lot of that time is unhealthy doomscrolling. These days, when I'm not using my phone, I try to be more deliberate about keeping it out of sight and out of mind. If I do need to keep my phone at hand, I always have it facedown. It could help save your phone battery I have a few reasons for making sure my phone screen is turned away. The first one is practical: Because my screen is facedown and won't turn on for each notification, I can save a little bit of battery charge. A single notification won't mean the difference between my phone lasting the whole day or dying in the afternoon, but notifications can add up, especially if I've enabled them across all of my apps. If I'm in a lot of group chats, my screen might end up turning on dozens of times throughout the day (and that's on the low side since many teenagers have hundreds of notifications a day). It also shows that you pay attention Keeping my phone facedown is also a good rule of social etiquette: If I'm hanging out with someone, I keep my screen hidden from view as a subtle way of showing that I won't be distracted by it. I don't want incoming notifications to light up my screen every few seconds, especially if I'm in a bar or other dimly lit setting. I want to keep my eyes on the person I'm talking to. "Eye contact is one of the most powerful forms of human connection. Neuroscience research indicates that when two people make direct eye contact, their brain activity begins to synchronize, supporting more effective communication and increasing empathy. This synchrony can be disrupted when attention shifts to a phone, even briefly," says Michelle Davis, clinical psychologist at Headspace. When I'm with the people I've chosen to spend time with, I want to be fully present with them. A sudden notification will tempt me to glance at, or worse, pick up my phone in the middle of a conversation. It minimizes your phone's presence I also have a more personal reason for keeping my phone facedown, and I suspect that other people have had this same thought: My phone takes up too much space in my life. I mean that quite literally. My phone is bigger than it needs to be. That's been especially true since I upgraded from my iPhone Mini to a "normal-sized" iPhone. Yes, I got a much needed boost in battery life, but I also got a screen with more pixels to lure me into the next news headline or autoplaying Instagram reel. A small smartphone isn't something that really exists anymore. My phone is bigger and better at grabbing my attention. It competes against my friends and family, books and movies, the entire world outside of its 6-inch screen. It often wins. But there's still one small thing I can do to minimize its presence: I can keep the screen turned away from me whenever possible. It can sometimes feel like there's no escaping from my phone. Whether that ever changes, or phones evolve into a new form factor, I can't say. I can't control everything about my phone, but I can control whether the screen stares at me when I'm not staring at it.
CNET
3 days ago
- CNET
3 Reasons Why I Always Keep My Phone Facedown on the Table
I'm having lunch with a friend at the neighborhood cafe; he's sitting in front of me but he might as well be in Antarctica, because he's on his phone. I know he's not trying to give me the cold shoulder, but it sure feels like it. Everyone has probably had a similar experience, whether they're the one getting phone snubbed or doing the snubbing themselves. I've been guilty of paying more attention to my screen than my companion, and I feel bad about it afterward. There's nothing wrong with replying to an urgent Slack message or pulling up a funny TikTok to share. But I know I probably spend too much time staring at screens, and a lot of that time is unhealthy doomscrolling. These days, when I'm not using my phone, I try to be more deliberate about keeping it out of sight and out of mind. And even if I do need to keep my phone at hand, I always have it facedown. For starters, it could help save phone battery I have a few reasons for making sure my phone screen is turned away. The first is a practical one: Because my screen is facedown and won't turn on with each notification, I can save a little bit of battery charge. A single notification won't mean the difference between my phone lasting the whole day or dying mid-afternoon, but those notifications can add up, especially if I've enabled them across all of my apps. If I'm in a lot of group chats, my screen might end up turning on dozens of times throughout the day (and that's on the low side -- many teenagers get hundreds of notifications a day). It also shows that you're paying attention Keeping my phone facedown is also a good rule of social etiquette: If I'm hanging out with someone, I keep my screen hidden from view as a subtle way of showing that I won't be distracted by it. I don't want incoming notifications to light up my screen every few seconds, especially if I'm in a bar or other dimly lit setting. I want to keep my eyes on the person I'm talking to. According to Michelle Davis, Clinical Psychologist at Headspace, "Eye contact is one of the most powerful forms of human connection. Neuroscience research indicates that when two people make direct eye contact, their brain activity begins to synchronize, supporting more effective communication and increasing empathy. This synchrony can be disrupted when attention shifts to a phone, even briefly." When I'm with the people I've chosen to spend time with, I want to be fully present with them. A sudden notification will tempt me to glance at, or worse, pick up my phone in the middle of a conversation. It's a way to minimize your phone's presence I also have a more personal reason for keeping my phone facedown, and I suspect that other people have had this same thought: My phone takes up too much space in my life. I mean that quite literally. My phone is bigger than it needs to be. That's been especially true since I upgraded from my iPhone Mini to a "normal-sized" iPhone. Yes, I got a much needed boost in battery life, but I also got a screen with more pixels to lure me into the next news headline or autoplaying Instagram reel. A small smartphone isn't something that really exists anymore. My phone is bigger and better at grabbing my attention. It competes against my friends and family, books and movies -- the entire world outside of its 6-inch screen. It often wins. But there's still one small thing I can do to minimize its presence: I can keep the screen turned away from me whenever possible. It can sometimes feel like there's no escaping from my phone. Whether that ever changes, or phones evolve into a new form factor, I can't say. I can't control everything about my phone, but I can control whether the screen stares at me when I'm not staring at it.
Fast Company
09-06-2025
- Fast Company
Why your phone habits leave you feeling so bad
For those who've been in the situation where we unlock our phone and start futzing around on our home screen, only to find ourselves looking up at the clock an hour later with a sense of shame and regret, fear not: science has your back, according to research published and presented at the human-computer interaction conference CHI. Researchers at the University of Washington, Columbia University, and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan followed 17 U.S. Android users for seven days. They captured a screenshot every five seconds, then paired those 34,000-plus images with real-time intention surveys, daily regret ratings, and follow-up interviews. An AI model automatically labeled each screenshot and categorized them into seven activity types, including direct messaging, search, or browsing an algorithmic feed. This data allowed researchers to map user reactions and their levels of regret for each type of phone activity. 'There are all of these products that people say they value and choose to use every day, and yet they also talk about how frustrated they feel by some of their own usage habits,' says Alexis Hiniker, an academic at the University of Washington and one of the coauthors of the paper. 'They'll talk about deleting things or trying to quit—we were trying to dig into what's going on there.' The findings suggested we're a pretty regretful bunch. Inside social apps, viewing algorithm-recommended posts and reading comment threads topped the regret rankings, even beating subscription-feed browsing. In contrast, direct communication and active search were the activities users regretted the least. Time played a role too. Longer sessions, and those that drifted from initial intentions (often from 'send a message' to 'just scrolling'), pushed regret scores higher, though still lower than sessions that began as pure browsing. 'Habit-driven social media checking was pretty regrettable for a lot of people,' says Hiniker. 'They didn't necessarily mind if they were using social media to do something totally unproductive, just to help them relax or just enjoy themselves. But they felt a lot better when that was an intentional choice and they chose to go there for some entertainment, as opposed to not really thinking about what they're doing and just picking up their phone out of habit.' The findings reflect poorly on big tech companies, which have made fortunes by shifting people from purposeful engagement with one another to mindless scrolling, pushing users toward algorithmically dictated feeds—the type most disliked by users. But Hiniker believes there's hope for platforms that take a different path. 'We desperately need social platforms that really are trying to support people in engaging with others, rather than extracting as much of their attention as possible and directing them to this recommended and sponsored content that they never chose to follow,' she says.
Al Bawaba
18-05-2025
- Health
- Al Bawaba
Japanese man gets 'dropped head syndrome' after using his phone too much
ALBAWABA - A 25-year-old Japanese man recently made headlines after being diagnosed with terrifying symptoms, described by doctors as the "dropped head syndrome," for using his phone excessively, leaving him with a bent neck. First shared by JOS Case Reports, the photos revealed and warned people that using a phone while the user's head is bent down for prolonged periods of time can result in "dropped head syndrome." X-rays of the 25-year-old Japanese man who developed a bulge extruding from his neck revealed his deformed spine. According to The Daily Mail, the man shared experiencing neck pains and difficulty swallowing food before being diagnosed with the condition. The doctors reported that the 25-year-old was an active child, but everything changed during his teenage years due to being targeted in a "serious bullying" incident by schoolmates. (JOS Case Reports) This prompted the man to drop out of school, shut himself inside his room, and play hours of video games with his neck bent, which eventually developed into dropped head syndrome. After a series of scans and multiple failed attempts at getting his neck straight again using collars, the doctors were forced to surgically operate on the man after he developed a distorted vertebra and scar tissue. The patient could only lift his head six months after undergoing several surgical procedures in his neck. Additionally, doctors issued a warning to individuals about excessive phone usage and targeted the youth as their main concern.
