A confession, a book, and a viral video that made me rethink my screen time
I recently read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation, and it really made me think differently about something most of us carry around every single day: our phones.
Haidt’s basic argument is that somewhere along the way, we fundamentally changed childhood. We moved from what he calls a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood.” Kids who once spent hours playing outside, interacting face-to-face, figuring out relationships, taking risks, getting bored, solving problems, and simply being kids are now spending enormous amounts of time looking at screens. Haidt points to the early 2010s as a major turning point. As smartphones and social media became deeply embedded in adolescent life, rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and other mental health struggles began rising dramatically.
One of the things he talks about that really caught my attention is what these phones are doing to our ability to focus. And this isn’t just affecting our kids. It’s affecting us as adults too.
Think about the last time you sat down to read a book, watch a movie, work on something important, or even have a conversation with someone. How long did you make it before reaching for your phone? We hear a notification, so we check it. We think of something, so we check it. There’s a moment of boredom, so we check it. Sometimes we don’t even know why we’re checking it. We just instinctively reach for our phone.
A 2026 survey found that Americans check their phones an average of 186 times a day, which works out to about once every five minutes while we’re awake. Think about that. Nearly 200 times a day we’re looking at these little devices. We have literally trained ourselves to interrupt ourselves.
Then we call it multitasking.
The problem is that most of the time we really aren’t multitasking. We’re switching. We work for a few minutes, then check our phone. We go back to work, then answer a text. We return to the task, then check an email. Then Facebook. Then Instagram. Then back to whatever we were originally doing. We may feel productive because we’re doing five different things, but how many of those five things are we actually doing with focus and excellence? Our attention is constantly being fragmented, and I think we are beginning to see the consequences.
Not long ago, I saw a viral video from a young woman talking about exactly this. The basic message of the video was, “It must be the damn phones.” She talked about how her parents’ generation warned them that phones were going to rot their brains, and now her generation is beginning to wonder if maybe their parents were right. One of the ideas that stuck with me was her realization that the very thing she continually reaches for is the thing that is slowly hurting her.
She described the cycle so many people live in. Post something. Check it. Post something. Check it. Repeat. We’re waiting for the likes, the comments, the notifications and that little dopamine hit that tells us somebody noticed us. At the same time, we’re constantly looking at what everybody else is doing, what they have, where they went, what they bought and how happy their life appears to be. Then we wonder why we’re anxious.
Maybe it really is the dang phones.
The bigger concern is what all of this is doing to us psychologically. We have a generation of young people growing up constantly connected while often feeling increasingly lonely. They have access to virtually unlimited information but struggle to maintain attention. They can communicate with hundreds or thousands of people online while sometimes struggling with basic face-to-face relationships. And eventually those kids become adults.
The anxious generation becomes anxious adults. Adults who can’t sit quietly or tolerate boredom. Adults who struggle to focus and constantly compare themselves to everyone else. Adults who feel nervous when they don’t know what’s happening and instinctively reach for a phone whenever life slows down. We’ve become so accustomed to constant stimulation that sometimes simply sitting quietly feels uncomfortable.
And before I sound like I’m preaching at everybody else, let me say this clearly: I’m guilty too. I reach for my phone too much. I check notifications. I scroll. I get distracted. There are times I find myself picking up my phone without even consciously deciding to do it. So this isn’t me standing above everybody saying, “You people need to put down your phones.” This is me saying that we all need to put down our phones more.
I’m not suggesting that we throw away our smartphones. They’re incredible tools. They connect us, help us work, give us directions, take our pictures, keep our calendars and allow us to communicate with people around the world. The problem isn’t necessarily that we have smartphones. The problem may be that our smartphones have us.
When we can’t eat without them, watch a movie without checking them, sit through church without looking at them, have dinner with our family without them sitting beside our plates, or tolerate ten minutes of boredom without scrolling, something is wrong.
Maybe the solution begins with something incredibly simple: put the phone down more often. Sit quietly. Read a book. Have a conversation. Take a walk. Eat dinner without your phone. Watch the whole movie. Look someone in the eye and listen when they’re talking. Do one thing at a time and do it with excellence.
Because maybe that young woman in the viral video stumbled onto something profound. Maybe our parents weren’t completely crazy. Maybe Jonathan Haidt is pointing us toward something we desperately need to confront. And maybe when we wonder why we’re becoming such an anxious generation, part of the answer has been sitting in our hands the whole time.
It might just be the dang phones.
Alex Bryant is a pastor, author, and speaker who writes about race, faith, and culture in America.
