Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Screens and attention
Tell someone their phone is wrecking their sleep and you have handed them something to argue with. Ask instead what they notice on the mornings after a late scroll, and let them say it.
This is the difference between a conclusion arriving from outside and one a person reaches themselves, which they then have to take seriously because it is theirs. It takes longer and it is uncomfortable to sit through, especially when you can already see the answer. Hold off anyway. Ask what they would expect to change if it were different, and let them make the link out loud in their own words.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Do not follow blindly what you do not know to be true: ears, eyes, and heart, you will be questioned about all these (Quran 17:36). Checking something for yourself is treated as the respectful path rather than the slow one.
وَلَا تَقۡفُ مَا لَيۡسَ لَكَ بِهِۦ عِلۡمٌۚ إِنَّ ٱلسَّمۡعَ وَٱلۡبَصَرَ وَٱلۡفُؤَادَ كُلُّ أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ كَانَ عَنۡهُ مَسۡـُٔولࣰ ا
Do not follow blindly what you do not know to be true: ears, eyes, and heart, you will be questioned about all these
Qur’an 17:36read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A cross sectional self report study found that heavier media multitasking went with more everyday attention failures, cognitive errors, mind wandering and distractibility. It is a correlation rather than a demonstrated cause, and it rests on people describing themselves. Which is more or less the argument for this approach: research can tell you what tends to travel together, but only the person can find out what is true of their own week.
Ralph BC, Thomson DR, Cheyne JA, Smilek D. (2014). Media multitasking and failures of attention in everyday life.. Psychological research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A conclusion someone works out for themselves does not have to be defended against.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Sometimes the scrolling is not really about the scrolling. It is about the coursework, or the conversation, or the thing you have not let yourself think about since March.
Among teenagers, saying they want to die has become something you say when the bus is late. You can no longer read intent off the phrase, in either direction.
Charge the phone in another room overnight and use a proper alarm clock. Small change, and it takes the decision away from you completely.