"Just use your phone less" is easy advice to give. But does cutting back actually change anything, or does it just feel virtuous for a few days?

Researchers have tested this with randomized experiments: one group blocks or limits their phone, a comparison group doesn't, and the researchers measure what changes. Here's what six peer-reviewed studies found, and what it means if you want to try it yourself.

Every quote below is taken word for word from the published paper, and every study is linked so you can read it at the source. Full references are listed at the end.

The short answer

Study What people did What changed
Castelo et al. (2025), PNAS Nexus Blocked mobile internet for 2 weeks, kept calls and texts Better attention, mental health, and well-being
Allcott et al. (2022), American Economic Review Could set limits on their future screen time Used their phones less
Hunt et al. (2018), Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology Limited Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to 10 minutes each per day Less loneliness and depression after 3 weeks
Allcott et al. (2020), American Economic Review Deactivated Facebook for 4 weeks Higher well-being, more time with family and friends
Grüning et al. (2023), PNAS Saw a short pause before opening chosen apps Closed the app 36% of the time
Kushlev et al. (2016), CHI Conference Proceedings Turned notification alerts off for a week Fewer symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity

None of these studies asked people to give up their phones entirely. They blocked or limited specific apps or features.

1. Blocking mobile internet improved attention and mood

Study: Castelo, Kushlev, Ward, Esterman, and Reiner (2025), PNAS Nexus. Free to read in full.

The authors describe their study as "a month-long randomized controlled trial to investigate how removing constant access to the internet through smartphones might impact psychological functioning" (Castelo et al., 2025, Abstract).

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group blocked mobile internet for the first two weeks, while the other "acted as a control for the first 2 weeks and then blocked mobile internet access for the second 2 weeks" (Castelo et al., 2025, Introduction).

The block targeted "the feature that makes smartphones 'smart' (mobile internet)" while letting participants keep "mobile connection (through texts and calls)" (Castelo et al., 2025, Abstract).

The results:

"The intervention improved mental health, subjective well-being, and objectively measured ability to sustain attention; 91% of participants improved on at least one of these outcomes." (Castelo et al., 2025, Abstract)

The authors put the size of these changes in perspective. They describe the improvement in sustained attention as "as much as being 10 years younger" (Castelo et al., 2025, Introduction), and write that the effect on depression symptoms was "similar to that of cognitive behavioral therapy" (Castelo et al., 2025, Results).

The authors also looked at how people spent their time: "when people did not have access to mobile internet, they spent more time socializing in person, exercising, and being in nature" (Castelo et al., 2025, Abstract).

The honest part: sticking with it was hard. In the authors' words, "complying with the intervention was evidently difficult for participants." Of the 467 people who committed to the block, 119 (25.5%) kept it on for at least 10 of the 14 days (Castelo et al., 2025, Results). Still, "even those who did not fully comply with the intervention experienced significant, though more modest, improvements" (Castelo et al., 2025, Discussion).

What it means for you: you don't have to give up calls and texts to take a meaningful break. Participants kept both, and the improvements were measured after two weeks.

2. Limits you set in advance reduce use

Study: Allcott, Gentzkow, and Song (2022), American Economic Review. Abstract free to read.

Economists Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, and Lena Song studied whether social media is habit forming, and whether people struggle to stick to their own intentions. They tested this "using a randomized experiment" (Allcott et al., 2022, p. 2424).

On setting limits, they found:

"Allowing people to set limits on their future screen time substantially reduces use, suggesting self-control problems." (Allcott et al., 2022, p. 2424)

On habits:

"Temporary incentives to reduce social media use have persistent effects, suggesting social media are habit forming." (Allcott et al., 2022, p. 2424)

And using their economic model, they estimated "that self-control problems cause 31 percent of social media use" (Allcott et al., 2022, p. 2424).

What it means for you: limits you set ahead of time can reduce use, and cutting back for a while can have effects that last. Set your limits when you're planning your day, not when you're already scrolling.

3. Cutting social media to about 30 minutes a day reduced loneliness

Study: Hunt, Marx, Lipson, and Young (2018), Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. Abstract free to read.

According to the abstract, after "a week of baseline monitoring, 143 undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania were randomly assigned to either limit Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat use to 10 minutes, per platform, per day, or to use social media as usual for three weeks" (Hunt et al., 2018, p. 751).

The researchers report:

"The limited use group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to the control group." (Hunt et al., 2018, p. 751)

Both groups also improved in some ways: "Both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baseline, suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring" (Hunt et al., 2018, p. 751).

The authors conclude that "limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes per day may lead to significant improvement in well-being" (Hunt et al., 2018, p. 751).

The limits: the participants were 143 undergraduates at one university, and the study lasted three weeks.

4. A month off Facebook raised well-being

Study: Allcott, Braghieri, Eichmeyer, and Gentzkow (2020), American Economic Review. Free to read in full.

This randomized experiment tested what happened when people deactivated Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election. The researchers found that deactivation:

"(i) reduced online activity, while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use." (Allcott et al., 2020, p. 629)

They also found that "deactivation reduced post-experiment valuations of Facebook" (Allcott et al., 2020, p. 629). In other words, after the break, people used Facebook less and valued it less.

The limits: as the quote shows, the break came with a trade-off: people who deactivated also had less factual news knowledge.

5. A short pause before opening an app changes behavior

Study: Grüning, Riedel, and Lorenz-Spreen (2023), PNAS. Free to read in full.

The researchers tested an app that shows a pop-up when people try to open apps they've chosen to limit. The pop-up "combines a deliberation message, friction by a short waiting time, and the option to dismiss opening the target app" (Grüning et al., 2023, Abstract). They "collected behavioral user data from 280 participants over 6 wk" (Grüning et al., 2023, Abstract).

The results:

"First, on average 36% of the times participants attempted opening a target app, they closed that app again after one sec interfered. Second, over the course of 6 wk, users attempted to open target apps 37% less than in the first week." (Grüning et al., 2023, Abstract)

In a separate experiment with 500 people, the researchers tested which part of the pop-up mattered. They "found that providing the additional option to dismiss the consumption attempt had the strongest effect," while "the deliberation message was not effective" (Grüning et al., 2023, Abstract).

The limits: the 37% drop compares users with their own first week, not with a separate group. The authors also disclose that the app "was primarily developed by one of this paper's coauthors Frederik Riedel" (Grüning et al., 2023, One Sec Against Mindless Digital Consumption section).

What it means for you: a moment of friction, with an easy way to back out, can be enough to stop you from opening an app out of habit.

6. Notifications make it harder to focus

Study: Kushlev, Proulx, and Dunn (2016), Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Abstract free to read.

The researchers "recruited a sample of 221 participants from the general population." For one week, participants kept "notification alerts on and their phones within their reach/sight." For another week, they kept "alerts off and their phones away" (Kushlev et al., 2016, p. 1011).

They found:

"Participants reported higher levels of inattention and hyperactivity when alerts were on than when alerts were off. Higher levels of inattention in turn predicted lower productivity and psychological well-being." (Kushlev et al., 2016, p. 1011)

The limits: the symptoms were reported by participants themselves, and the study looked at people "not clinically diagnosed with ADHD" (Kushlev et al., 2016, p. 1011).

What it means for you: the authors suggest people can reduce these costs "simply by adjusting existing phone settings" (Kushlev et al., 2016, p. 1011).

Why these studies matter

Many claims about phones come from studies that only show two things happen together, not that one causes the other. As Castelo et al. (2025) put it, "correlational and anecdotal evidence suggests that these concerns may be well-founded, but causal evidence remains scarce" (Abstract).

That's why this article focuses on randomized experiments, where researchers changed people's phone use and compared the results. These studies still have limits, including the ones noted in each section above, but together they point in the same direction: blocking or limiting the most distracting parts of a phone was followed by improvements in use, attention, or well-being.

How to put this into practice

Based on what these studies found:

  1. Choose specific apps or features. Each study above targeted specific apps or features rather than taking phones away entirely.
  2. Keep what you need. In Castelo et al. (2025), participants kept calls and texts and still improved.
  3. Set limits in advance. Allcott et al. (2022) found that letting people set limits on their future screen time "substantially reduces use."
  4. Add a pause with a way out. Grüning et al. (2023) found that the option to dismiss opening an app had the strongest effect.
  5. Turn off notification alerts for apps that don't need them, as tested by Kushlev et al. (2016).
  6. Try it for two weeks. That's how long the blocking period lasted in Castelo et al. (2025).

Focus is built around these same ideas. You choose which apps, websites, or categories to block and for how long, and everything else on your iPhone keeps working. If you reach for a blocked app out of habit, Focus shows a pause screen that helps you get back to what you meant to do. It uses Apple's Screen Time protections and doesn't need an account.

If Instagram or TikTok are the apps you most want a break from, our guide on how to take a break from Instagram or TikTok without deleting it walks through every option step by step.

References

Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2020). The welfare effects of social media. American Economic Review, 110(3), 629–676. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190658

Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M., & Song, L. (2022). Digital addiction. American Economic Review, 112(7), 2424–2463. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20210867

Castelo, N., Kushlev, K., Ward, A. F., Esterman, M., & Reiner, P. B. (2025). Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being. PNAS Nexus, 4(2), Article pgaf017. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf017

Grüning, D. J., Riedel, F., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2023). Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(8), Article e2213114120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213114120

Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751–768. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751

Kushlev, K., Proulx, J., & Dunn, E. W. (2016). "Silence your phones": Smartphone notifications increase inattention and hyperactivity symptoms. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1011–1020). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858359