Turning off this ‘everyday phone feature’ can make you '10 years younger'
Phones are a vital part of everyday life for most people across the world these days, yet scientists have revealed that disabling a key feature that you use all the time could make you at least 10 years younger.
Most people - especially those on the younger side - couldn't live without their smartphones, as not only do they use them to communicate with their friends and keep up to date with the latest news, but they're often a key part of many jobs too.
Understandably this results in extended sessions where you're looking at your phone where emails, TikToks, and Instagram posts are constantly fed into our brains.
Global average screen time numbers have left people shocked when confronted with the facts about how much time our eyes are glued to the six-point-something inch displays every day, and doctors have finally revealed that disabling one major part of your device could make you '10 years younger'.
Advert
As reported by Metro, researchers have unveiled the dramatically positive effects that downloading an app that blocks internet access on your phone can bring to your health.
The results not only improved the mental health of participants more than the equivalent time on antidepressants would be capable of, but it also enhanced their attention span to the point where it was the equivalent of someone 10 years their junior.
400 adults split into two equal groups participated in the study published in PNAS Nexus, where one group spent the first two weeks of the four-week study with the app installed, and the other used it in the latter two weeks.
Screen time when using the app decreased on average by around three hours from 5 hours and 14 minutes to 2 hours and 14 minutes in one of the groups.
This decreased was most evident in the group that downloaded the app first, although they did report an increase in the following two weeks to a level 15% below their average prior to the commencement of the study.
The study outlined: "Even those who did not fully comply with the intervention experienced significant, though more modest, improvements. These findings suggest that constant connection to the online world comes at a cost, since psychological functioning improves when this connection is reduced."
Similar experiments have been conducted by YouTubers who reported dramatic improvements to their memory in particular, and the team behind the study has proposed further research that specifically isolates certain social media platforms to see how that would affect proceedings.
Reports surrounding TikTok have illustrated that it takes just 35 minutes for users of the app to become addicted to it, so it would be fascinating to see the effects of a study like this on apps that are allegedly designed to maximize user retention.