According to a recent survey, over 88% of US respondents said they check their phone within the first 10 minutes after waking up. They browse social networks, reply to messages from friends, or catch up on the news. But what impact does this habit have on our health?
On TikTok, American neuroscientist Emily McDonald regularly dispenses advice on how to take care of our brains. And this includes banishing bad habits, such as checking your smartphone in the morning.
In a video viewed over 15 million times, she explains: “Whenever you wake up in the morning, your brainwaves transition from theta to alpha. This means our subconscious mind is in a more programmable state.
“The content you consume during this time will have a greater impact on your mindset, and it messes up our dopamine for the rest of the day so that we continue to check our phones.” Dopamine is the neurotransmitter hormone in our brains that act as a kind of reward centre, giving a sense of pleasure.
As such, checking social networks first thing in the morning can impair our attention span throughout the day. Which is why, in another video, McDonald advises turning off notifications: “They are designed to trigger your brain into a stimulus-response behaviour so that when the notification lights up, you click it and go to social media without a second thought.”
The neuroscientist also urges people to “limit scrolling” through news and feeds on your phone. She cites a study suggesting that heavy scrolling is linked to psychological distress, which could lead to decreased life satisfaction and mental wellbeing.
Screens have become an integral part of our daily lives, and their intensive use may be having an indirect effect on our cognitive abilities. According to a Samsung study from 2020, humans’ attention spans have dropped from 12 to eight seconds since 2000, at least when listening to music.
Furthermore, doomscrolling through news has been linked to anxiety and depression in a study conducted by Texas Tech University. To help counter this, McDonald recommends focusing on yourself with positive affirmations and light physical exercise as a bedtime routine, instead of looking at your phone.