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Two weeks is all it takes to reverse a decade\u2019s worth of cognitive decline linked to social media addiction, a new study suggests.<\/p>\n
In one of the largest trials of its kind, more than 467 adults were asked to block out all internet access on their phones for just 14 days. That included no TikTok<\/a>, no Instagram and no social media-related doomscrolling.<\/p>\n The calling and texting functions still worked, essentially turning their smart phones<\/a>\u00a0into analog phones of the past using an app called Freedom that blocked all internet access.\u00a0<\/p>\n The results shocked the researchers.<\/p>\n By the end of the two-week period, screen time had plummeted from over five hours a day to under three. Depression<\/a> symptoms improved more than when treated with antidepressants and matched the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy.<\/p>\n And in those who stuck with the 14-day social media detox, their attention spans improved by the same amount as if they were to reverse 10 years of age-related decline, improving so much that their focus became as sharp as someone a decade younger.<\/p>\n \u2018If we think about what we\u2019re trying to detox from, it\u2019s not the calling and the texting for the most part. It is the social media. It\u2019s the gaming. It\u2019s all of those short dopamine bursts that we get from all these things we do on our phones,\u2019 said study co-author and Georgetown University psychology professor Dr Kostadin Kushlev.<\/p>\n