this episode is sponsored by fabulous
your phone changes your brain as the
average American touches their phone 2
600 times per day and this constant
scrolling has altered your brain's
neurology so what would happen to your
brain and body if you tried to quit your
phone after one hour of quitting you
have likely tried to pick up your phone
three to four times because the average
person picks up their phone 52 times per
day after 12 hours of quitting you may
start to feel anxious as not checking
your phone actually releases the stress
hormone cortisol this is due to how your
phone changes these three neural
Pathways in your brain they are
activated when anticipating or
experiencing a reward your phone's Tick
Tock notifications text messages or
Instagram story updates all act as many
rewards to your brain and physically
change how these Pathways work in the
new absence of your phone cortisol is
released because when you're endlessly
scrolling or using social media the
positive social interactions reward the
brain and cause constant firing this
causes a release of dopamine along these
Pathways in response to your phone's
constant stimulus every ding
notification every thoughty sexy photo
of someone on Instagram a text message
from a friend acts as a mini reward that
you now associate with picking up your
phone and these little associations
become stronger and stronger in the
Noggin until you're just constantly
picking up your phone you know what I
mean sometimes you're on the phone with
your mom for example and looking for
your phone because you're like wait
where's my phone it's usually in my hand
this way not on the phone and then you
realize that we're all in the crisis of
the cell phone age
so after 12 hours of quitting you are no
longer checking your phone this lack of
stimulus that you're used to in your
brain causes a stress response and you
start to feel anxious I hate this thing
that is you really love it more than
anything in the world after 24 hours of
quitting and one survey found that
people began to experience fomo the fear
of missing out which led to increased
heart rate increased blood pressure and
more anxiety other people had increased
anxiety but they couldn't exactly
explain why it wasn't just because of
fomo for example but it is likely due to
the fact that these tech companies have
actually hijacked our brains using their
reward prediction error encoding of our
Noggins tech companies have studied
these neuronal Concepts in order to keep
you using their products if you look at
this dopamine activity and reward chart
you see that you learn behaviors when
you get a reward without a cue you keep
behaviors when you anticipate a reward
and it gets um satisfied and you change
a behavior when you anticipate a good
reward but it's worse than expected so
you don't want to do it again this is
all linked to our human evolution
ability to survive we predict our yummy
yummy food the yummy yummy food gives us
Health we learn the behavior we continue
to eat but when applying this to our
phone we often can't predict what is
going to happen when we check our phone
and with notifications likes and
communication we are mostly always
rewarded by checking it making us learn
to constantly check our phone also since
checking your phone is such a low cost
effort you expect small rewards and are
mostly satisfied so you continue the
behavior of checking your phone the
hijacking of these neuronal Pathways
means you have strong incentives to
check your phone other and other and
over and again now that you've quit your
phone the stimulus is removed and that
actually leads to increased anxiety day
three of quitting is when most people
start to feel the Phantom vibration or
Phantom ringing of their cell phone that
is no longer there this is when quitting
your phone starts to feel like a horror
movie you'll literally start to feel
your phone buzzing in your leg even
though it's not there like a goddamn
ghost of your old phone but day three of
quitting is when some good things start
to happen because you may begin to be
rewarded by your friends your family
your lover because you're actually not
paying attention to them you are no
longer fubbing which is snubbing your
loved ones for your phone oh loved one
please stop talking I must snub thee for
I am looking at hot man lifting weight
topless on Instagram one study had
participants view an animation
pretending to be with a sexual partner
one animation checked their phone
throughout the other did not the
participants perceived the people who
didn't check their phone as having a
better quality of communication and
increased relationship satisfaction
after three days of quitting your phone
you may start to notice that your
relationships are improving after day
five of quitting your phone and your
attention span may increase you may even
start noticing that you're doing better
at work and school a small study of
college students who actively use their
phones found they now focus on subject
objects for only 65 seconds another
study of office workers who use their
phones at work found they can only focus
for three minutes at a time but a study
at the Carnegie Mellon University's
human computer interaction lab took 136
students and got them to sit a test some
of them had to have their phone Switched
Off and the others had their phones on
and received intermittent text messages
the students who received text messages
performed on average 20 percent worse
than those who had their phones off this
is because your conscious brain can only
produce one or two thoughts at once
every time you open a text message or
check a notification your brain has to
switch from task to task creating the
switch cost effect making it harder for
you to concentrate but since you've quit
your phone you are switching tasks less
often and you may start to notice your
attention span increasing and your
ability to do better work at school or
even at the end job after five to seven
days of quitting and your cognition will
continue to improve a study of 660
people examined the analytical cognitive
styles of its participants on average
participants with stronger cognitive
skills spent less time using their
smartphones the study went as far to say
there may be a potential link between
heavy smartphone use and decreased
intelligence reading that study was a
blow to the ego because I am known for
using my phone a lot more than a lot of
other people and therefore yes it's a
bit of proof that I am dumb after one
week a long-term study found reducing
cell phone use caused improved sleep
some scientists argue that it is the
psychological arousal of the phone that
affects our sleep others argue it's the
light from the screen you know you've
heard all about the blue light like oh
it's burning my retinas I can't sleep
there isn't any hard evidence as to why
these cell phones are making you sleep
less just some surveys and large studies
about people who use their cell phones
less getting better sleep do with that
as you will after 14 days of no phone
anxiety anxiety has decreased some
studies even hint that you may have
decreased depression this is because
Studies have found that phone use may be
associated with depression although it
is hard to say whether your phone causes
depression but one study found that
teens who spend five hours daily on
their mobile devices are 71 percent more
likely to develop risk factors for
depression compared to those who only
use their phone for an hour after two
weeks you will also have reduced neck
and wrist pain one study found that the
longer you used your phone the more
likely you were to have neck pain people
who overuse their phone could also
affect their hamstring this is because
of an increased size in your median
nerve and decreased grip strength due to
using your phone the median nerve starts
from your shoulder down to all your
fingers except your pinky on the palm
side this increase in size of the nerve
from using your phone means that you
have a higher risk of getting carpal
tunnel syndrome which is defined by
numbness tingling and weakness in your
hand so after or two weeks of not using
your phone you're potentially healing
not just your brain but your body too
thank you to Fabulous for sponsoring
this video because it is the only app
that actually helps me with my phone
addiction and other aspects of My Life
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off my phone at 7 pm every day sitting
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you so much for watching make sure
you're subscribed for more science
videos and if you're on your phone right
now try turning it off for a couple days
and see if you start to feel Phantom
vibrations a little spooky spooky in the
pocket peace