Study suggests removing one phone feature could reverse social media’s cognitive effects in 14 days

A new study has found the one thing that needs to be removed from your phone to reverse the negative cognitive effects caused by social media in just two weeks. 

If you look at your average screentime and wince, then there’s a good chance you’re not alone. 

These days, our phones are more than just a way to make a call or send a quick message, and millions of people are clocking up hours of screen time every day.

But scrolling isn’t just a waste of time; evidence suggests that heavy social media use can have a negative effect on cognitive abilities, including your memory and focus, but experts believe this can be reversed with one simple change. 

More than half of Americans would like to cut their screen time down

In the US, the average person spends around five hours and 16 minutes a day looking at their phone, according to Harmony Healthcare IT. 

And it probably comes as little surprise to know that age plays a significant role, with Gen Z spending the most, an average of six hours and 27 minutes on their phones, and Baby Boomers using their devices the least, at a little over four hours a day. 

More than half (53 percent) of Americans wanted to cut down their phone usage in 2025, and again, there was a clear age divide, with 66 percent of Gen Z saying they wanted to cut back on their screen time, compared to 35 percent of Baby Boomers. 

A growing body of research appears to suggest that cutting back on phone use, and specifically social media, could be a smart idea. 

Studies have linked excessive social media usage to declines in mental health as well as a drop in attention, memory, and focus.

One study found that even being around your smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.

Now, while this all sounds quite bleak, a new piece of research has suggested that these negative impacts can be reversed quickly and fairly easily. 

Undoing the harm caused by scrolling social media on your phone requires just one simple change

A recently published study in PNAS Nexus showed promising results for reversing any harm caused by social media in just 14 days. 

In the study, researchers placed an app called Freedom onto the smartphones of more than 450 adults to block internet access. 

The app effectively turns your smartphone into a dumbphone, meaning you can make and receive calls, but you can’t use it for ‘doom scrolling’ or checking out your socials. 

Participants were not forced to give up internet access altogether and could still use their computers and other devices; it was only removed from their smartphones. 

Researchers found that participants slashed their daily screen time from  314 minutes to 161 minutes, and that by the end of the study showed improvements in their attention span, mental health, and self-reported well-being. 

The changes were significant, according to researchers, equivalent to reversing around 10 years of cognitive decline. 

So, not only was cutting out scrolling able to stop further cognitive damage, but it also reversed it. 

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