Keep calm, there is an app to help you control your smartphone use

By Michelle Helena van Velthoven, John Powell and Georgina Powell

Are you spending too much time on your smartphone? Do you ever feel like you’re missing out if you have not checked your phone in a while? If that is the case, you are not the only one. But do you know what to do about it? Ironically, there are apps that could help you.

It is only ten years since Apple launched the first iPhone, but problematic smartphone use has become a new challenge to our health. Findings from a UK survey showed that UK adults on average spend a day per week (25 hours) online, 40% go online more than 10 times a day and 10% more than 50 times a day. Four in ten UK adults find that they spend too much time online, 60% consider themselves ‘hooked’ to the Internet and about a third finds it difficult to disconnect. Smartphone use can be problematic for some people due to the availability of constant connection, the addictiveness of apps combined with personal psychological factors. This is facilitated by characteristics of the technology, including easy access, the possibility of escaping daily life, being able to remain anonymous online, and the frequency of alerts and messages.

Several non-technological and technological approaches to dealing with problematic smartphone use have been proposed, which have similarities with approaches used for moderating food or alcohol intake. For example, digital diets where people spend a couple of days without their phone, are a popular short-term approach to break people’s habit of smartphone overuse and 15 million UK adults have undertaken this approach. There are also several apps that can help people with tracking smartphone use and setting goals for moderating use, both for themselves and for their family members. Google just announced that they are building digital wellness tools into their Android operating system. However, none of these have been researched properly and there is therefore a lack of knowledge on what works effectively to help people manage their Internet and smartphone use.

In our paper ‘Problematic smartphone use: digital approaches to an emerging public health problem’ published in Digital Health, pathways to problematic use of smartphones, approaches to deal with this issue, and their limitations are discussed. This includes problematic use of smartphones by people who self-identify that they or their family members use mobile devices in a problematic way. Extreme problematic use (e.g. relating to online gambling or heavy gaming) that severely disrupts people’s lives is a form of digital addiction excluded from this. An overview of available apps for problematic smartphone use is provided. Further work is needed on various aspects of problematic smartphone use, including the understanding of how smartphone use impacts people’s lives, strengthening the definition of problematic smartphone use, and validation of its measurement. We hope that these efforts will help people to use their smartphone in a healthy and effective way.

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Article details

Problematic smartphone use: Digital approaches to an emerging public health problem

Michelle H van Velthoven, John Powell and Georgina Powell

DOI: 10.1177/2055207618759167

DIGITAL HEALTH

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Anton Scamvougeras and David Castle

David Jonathan Castle MBChB MD FRCPsych FRANZCP is Professor, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Tasmania; and Co-Director, Tasmanian Centre for Mental Health Service Innovation. He has wide clinical and research interests, encompassing schizophrenia and related disorders, bipolar disorder, OCD spectrum disorders and disorders of body image. He has a longstanding interest in the impact of licit and illicit substances on the brain and body, and is actively engaged in programmes addressing the physical health of the mentally ill and the mental health of the physically ill. He has published widely in the scientific literature and is a frequent speaker at scientific meetings.

Anton Scamvougeras MBChB FRCPC is a Consultant Neuropsychiatrist in the University of British Columbia Neuropsychiatry Program, and a Clinical Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry, Vancouver, BC. He obtained his medical degree in Cape Town, South Africa, and then worked as a family physician in rural Canada before specializing in Psychiatry at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, with fellowship studies in neurosciences, MRI, and research methodology. He has been at UBC since 1994, and has a special interest in understanding and helping individuals with severe Functional/Somatoform Disorders. He also runs the UBC Adult Tourette’s Syndrome Clinic, assisting individuals with Tourette’s and related conditions.

Dr. Sherilyn Houle

Dr. Sherilyn Houle is a pharmacist and Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy, with research and teaching interests in pharmacy practice to full scope with a focus on pharmacists as providers of vaccinations and travel health services.

Joshua Lew McDermott

Joshua Lew McDermott is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Southeastern Louisiana University. He researches the informal economy, informal work, and the rights of informal workers with a focus on urban Sierra Leone and Mexico. He is interested in the political economy of inequality, work, and poverty across the globe, and is passionate about advocating for a more just and equitable economic and political system.

Alex Sargsyan

Alex Sargsyan, DNP, ANP-BC, CNE, (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. He received a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Duke University, Durham, NC. During his doctoral studies, he developed critical skills needed to translate evidence-based principles into nursing practice.

He will be graduating from University of Tennessee in Knoxville with PhD in Nursing in May, 2024. His dissertation explores the effects of Farm Animal Assisted Therapies with ducks on persons with Traumatic Brain Injury. His scholarly endeavors outline the importance of human animal bonds and focus on the further exploration of the role of animals in improving human health and wellbeing.

Dr. Sargsyan is a managing partner at Dashing Duckling Farm, LLC. It is a no-kill, free-range poultry farm sitting on 12+ acres. While embracing traditional agricultural values the farm strives to establish a production that is human, sustainable, and self-reliant.

Erik M. Hines

Erik M. Hines, Ph.D., is a Professor of Counseling in the Division of Child, Family, and Community Engagement within the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. Dr. Hines prepares graduate students to be counselors in a clinical or school setting. His research agenda focuses on: (a) postsecondary readiness for Black males; (b) academic and career outcomes of Black males; (c) parental involvement and its impact on academic achievement for students of color; and (d) career exploration for students of color in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). He has secured over $2.8 million dollars in funding. Additionally, Dr. Hines has accumulated over 75 publications, including two co-edited books, Equity-Based Career Development and Postsecondary Transitions: An American Imperative and Black Males in Secondary and Postsecondary Education: Teaching, Mentoring, Advising and Counseling. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Counseling and Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal for Specialists in Group Work, Professional School Counseling, The High School Journal, and Urban Education. Moreover, he has served as guest editor for six special issues in the following journals: Journal of College Access, Journal for Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, Journal for Specialists in Group Work, Professional School Counseling, and Teaching and Supervision in Counseling. Last, Dr. Hines is a proud American Counseling Association (ACA) Fellow and recipient of the Al Dye Award from the Association for Specialists in Group Work.

Donna Y. Ford

Donna Y. Ford is a Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. She is also a faculty affiliate at Ohio State’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Center for Latin American Studies.

She is known for her research about gifted and talented education and culturally responsive, multicultural, urban education. Specifically, her work focuses on (1) the achievement gap, (2) recruiting and retaining culturally different students into gifted education, (3) multicultural curriculum and instruction, and (4) culturally competent teacher training and development. She consults with school districts and educational and legal organizations on these topics.

Ford has given more than 2,000 presentations and has published more than 300 articles and book chapters; she has authored 15 books. Professor Ford is ranked by EdWeek as one of the top 200 influential scholars in the nation; is ranked as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world by Stanford study; and ranked by Research.com as 2106 in world and 1057 in U.S.

Ilan Laufer

Dr. Ilan Laufer is a Senior Lecturer in Ariel University’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, where he also co-directs the NeuroIS EEG lab. With a solid background in cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging tools, Dr. Laufer completed his PhD studies at the Technion, specializing in behavioral electrophysiology. Following this, he pursued a postdoctoral position at Yale University School of Medicine, employing fMRI and EEG analysis in cognitive neuroscience research. He subsequently engaged with a start-up focusing on brain function monitoring in health and disease. Dr. Laufer’s research centers on EEG analysis within cognitive tasks, including source analysis and brain dynamics. His recent work involves exploring electrophysiological markers in behavioral game theory and attachment theory, forging connections between cognitive neuroscience and AI models.

Rob Dickinson

Rob Dickinson is in his third year as a PhD candidate at the University of Sussex and his research focuses on Far-Right misinformation, particularly regarding COVID and the Anti-Vaxxer movement, as well as previous work in the areas of global inequality, extreme poverty, modern slavery, and historical (and contemporary) colonialism, imperialism, neoliberalism, and necropolitics.

Perri Pepperman

Perri Pepperman (BSN RN, MHSA) is from Simsbury, Connecticut, a small town In New England near Hartford, Connecticut. She attended University of Miami and obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a minor in psychology. Perri decided to pursue a Masters in Health Systems Administration from Georgetown University because she believes that, coupled with her nursing degree, it will help her improve the discrepancies in healthcare distribution and specialty services provided to disadvantaged populations.

Emily C. Jaeger

Emily C. Jaeger, MPH, is a Project Manager and Researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity. Her work primarily focuses on behavioral health interventions and she has served as project director for several large-scale health interventions focused on weight loss. Her specialty areas include qualitative data analysis and intervention tailoring, both of which she has worked with Dr. Griffith on for the past decade.

Editor's PicksChris BurnageAugust 24, 2018Michelle H van Velthoven, John Powell, Georgina Powell, problematic smartphone use, digital interventions, addiction, Internet, apps, Public Health, Digital Health, technology