Is Your Phone Actually Rotting Your Brain? Why Your Attention Span Feels Broken—And How the Algorithm Intended it That Way”

After a long, hard day at work, all we want to do is unplug. Figuratively, that is. For many of us, scrolling endlessly on social media has become a go-to method of relaxation. But, as much research has shown, what we do to soothe our minds may actually be causing us harm.

Two faculty members in Adelphi University's Department of Communications are addressing today's scrolling epidemic from different-though complementary-scholarly perspectives.

Anna Akerman Berman, PhD, associate professor of communications and a social psychologist who specializes in child development, is taking a stand against a global media machine that's designed to keep us hooked on content. Once a media consultant for the likes of Nickelodeon, MTV, Scholastic and Disney, Dr. Akerman Berman now uses her insider knowledge to help parents wean their children off of screens.

Peggy Cassidy, PhD, professor of communications and an expert in the history of children's interactions with media, is looking to the past to understand our potential digital future. Dr. Cassidy has published at length on the evolution of American media environments. Her tips for a healthy media diet take their cues from 200 years of history: how generations of parents and children have adapted to the disruptive effects of new forms of media.

From attention-grabbing TV to attention-proofing phones

After earning her PhD, Dr. Akerman Berman applied the scientific theories she'd studied in school as an audience researcher for Sesame Workshop and Noggin. She analyzed children's "eyes on screen"-when they were paying attention to the screen, when they were bored enough to look away-and worked with creative teams to modify programming accordingly. "Before I started working for these companies, I hadn't realized the extent to which psychology was being used to create content," she said.

Dr. Akerman Berman went on to provide consulting services to executives at some of the world's top media and entertainment brands. "The question we always returned to was: How can we keep kids watching?"

Today, she's determined to keep children's eyes off of screens. Why? There's nothing wrong with scrolling for 10 minutes to decompress, she says. The problem is, 10 minutes often turns into several hours. That's by design. "These algorithms are using more data points than we could ever imagine. They're catered specifically to individual interests, and they reward scrolling behaviors in a very precise, individualized way."

The science behind our scrolling addiction

According to Dr. Akerman Berman, scrolling seems to satiate our most basic human needs: competence, connection and autonomy. In a world where it's all too easy to feel disconnected and disempowered, scrolling can generate instant satisfaction. But, Dr. Akerman Berman says, the feeling is "brief and disingenuous," nothing like the satisfaction that comes from real-life experiences.

People trying to meet their basic needs-particularly children and adolescents-are easy targets for big business. They always have been. The tactics that tech companies use to keep us scrolling, Dr. Akerman Berman argues, are not so different from the manipulative marketing campaigns run by tobacco companies throughout the 20th century. However, it's been proven that young people are less likely to use tobacco once they've been exposed to the tobacco industry's manipulations. Dr. Akerman Berman is confident we can apply the same logic to social media addiction.

Education is the best weapon against "brain rot"

"The first step," Dr. Akerman Berman said, "is educating our kids and ourselves. The second is becoming aware of our behaviors." People of all ages should start collecting data of their own: logging their screen time and noticing how they feel before and after scrolling. Armed with this "metacognitive awareness," they might begin to turn to other activities instead of opening TikTok or Instagram.

But going from 100 to zero won't happen overnight, Dr. Akerman Berman stresses. "Our nervous system has learned that discomfort equals phone. In moments of stress, we will fall back on this habit. Still, we absolutely can re-habituate ourselves to a new normal where we're replacing scrolling with taking a walk or listening to music."

The "grasshopper mind" of the endless scroller

Dr. Cassidy sees scrolling as a cultural practice-and a cultural problem. As a media ecologist, she's more interested in media's form rather than its content. While we should be thinking critically about the content we're consuming online, we also need to consider the "ways of thinking, knowing and interacting" that are encouraged or discouraged by scrolling. She cites a concept coined by scholar Maryanne Wolf, EdD, called "grasshopper mind," or "the impulse to just scroll away, to jump from one thing to another as soon as things get boring or hard or confusing."

That impulse could very well erode the foundations of our society. If we disengage as soon as we're faced with something we don't understand, what will happen to our interpersonal relationships, our cultural norms, our politics? Dr. Cassidy believes the cracks are already visible. "We as citizens are not engaging deeply with ideas," she said. "We tend to have superficial emotional responses to political messaging, which has contributed to this intense polarization we see today. We don't stick around long enough to hear someone's full perspective."

New media fears have old precedents

For Dr. Cassidy, the fears around social media addiction and scroll culture are well founded. But they're nothing new. In her book Children, Media, and American History: Printed Poison, Pernicious Stuff, and Other Terrible Temptations (Routledge, 2017), she charts 200 years of panicked reactions to emerging media environments, from 19th century dime novels and nickelodeons to rock 'n' roll and TV.

"As a media historian, I resist the temptation to use the word unprecedented," Dr. Cassidy said. In fact, she even takes a "certain comfort in knowing we're not that unique. Our species has been here a long time, and other changes in media have disrupted us, upset us, required us to adapt."

At the same time, historical precedent shouldn't become its own deterministic force. "Just because adults were afraid of dime novels in the 1800s and it all worked out okay doesn't mean we don't need to worry about social media and smartphones. Throughout history, there have been missed opportunities for citizens to organize themselves around resisting the direction that certain technologies are taking us." In other words, to create the future we want to see for ourselves and our children, we have to act now.

The secrets of a healthy media diet

Like Dr. Akerman Berman, Dr. Cassidy prescribes moderation-and an open mind-to adults and adolescents alike. "I would encourage people, especially parents, to take a breath and not throw the baby out with the bathwater," she said. "Yes, so much of what our children are consuming is not developmentally appropriate. But we should stay open to wondering about what's captured their attention."

In social media, young people are finding benefits that prior forms of media never enabled. Adolescents who feel alienated in their immediate communities, for instance, can reach out to allies halfway across the world with the press of a button. These connections may be mediated by technology, but they're indisputably human.

Scrolling addicts may be able to rewire their psychic habits by leaning into that innate human-ness, too. "We have to learn to stay with hard things, to struggle, to make mistakes," Dr. Cassidy said. "That's the only way we'll get better."