Excessive use of screens, especially those on our smartphones, is not only harmful to our mental health. Details from Martin Ducret, doctor and journalist at Doctor’s Daily.
franceinfo: According to a recent Breton study, excessive time spent on our screens is also harmful to our physical health?
Martin Ducret: Absolutely, this work, carried out by a team of doctors from Brest University Hospital, showed that the more you reduce the time spent on your smartphone, the more you spontaneously increase your physical activity. And to arrive at these results published in the excellent medical journal Plos Onenearly 500 people volunteered to take on the “Let’s put down our smartphones” challenge.
A challenge where for one week, these volunteers had to reduce the use of their cell phones by one hour per day, knowing that the French spend on average 3.6 hours per day facing the screen of their mobile device.
In the end, 75% of the volunteers did not succeed in this challenge, which shows how difficult it is for many to get off their smartphone, it is a real addiction. On the other hand, for the 25% who succeeded, the number of daily steps was increased by more than 800.
According to this study, can excessive smartphone use be considered a real risk factor for poor physical health?
Oui. “Excessive smartphone use attacks the three pillars of health: sleep, diet and physical activity, Dr Yannick Guillodo, sports doctor, co-author of this study, and co-founder of the Citizen University of Health Prevention at Brest University Hospital, told me. The more we have our eyes glued to the screen of our cell phone, the worse we eat, the less we sleep, and the less we move.
For him, this object, which accompanies us in all our activities, is the new health risk factor of the 21st century, even more harmful than tobacco.. Moreover, Dr Guillodo titled his latest book published by Baudelaire, The smartphone killsin reference to the logo on cigarette packets. The book calls for collective awareness and reasoned use of smartphones.
But how can you reduce the daily use of your mobile device?
Individually already, by becoming aware of the time spent in front of your screen thanks to applications, such as “Digital Well-being” on Android or “Screen Time” on iPhone. They allow you to restrict screen time, by targeting the most addictive applications, such as games or social networks.
Another way to ward off temptation is to turn off your notifications, or even switch to airplane mode, at certain times of the day. On a broader scale, prevention and national awareness campaigns, with challenges such as Dry January, in other words the month of January without alcohol, would encourage people to reduce screen time, particularly among young people, who are most at risk from the harmful effects of smartphones.
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