The Great Brain Drain
Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA production (Pexels)
How many times do you grab your phone and check it – for anything – over the course of a day?
Before you answer, think about it.
This would include looking at your phone for:
... checking the time,
... reading a text,
... sending a text,
... scrolling on social media,
... checking email,
... googling the answer to something,
... checking on the score of a game,
... playing your daily Wordle,
... playing a game like Candy Crush or Wordscapes,
... checking security cameras.
Try consciously counting how many times you reach for it even in a single hour. If you are like most people, you vastly underestimate how frequently you look at your device. It’s become an unconscious reflex.
Ready for the averages? One research project found that people checked or unlocked their smartphones between 50 and more than 100 times per day, on average every 10 to 20 minutes while awake. Most people self-report only checking their phones about 10 times per day.
So what is that doing to us?
More than you might think.
That is, if you can still think.
Constantly checking your phone can drain your focus and your memory. Studies from Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. and Keimyung University in South Korea found that checking your phone about 110 times a day may signal high-risk or problematic use.
“The phones and digital media are reinforcing for our brains, activating the same reward pathway as drugs and alcohol. The phones create a compulsive habit loop where we check without thinking and experience withdrawal when we don’t check or don’t have access to our phone,” said Anna Lembke, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, to the Washington Post.
The Post article went further:
A study by the Singapore Management University found that frequent interruptions to check our devices lead to more attention and memory lapses. Unlike total screen time, the frequency of smartphone checks is a much stronger predictor of daily cognitive failures.
Constantly unlocking the phone forces the brain to switch rapidly between tasks, eroding the ability to focus on just one. Decades ago, influential computer scientist Gerald M. Weinberg warned that working on multiple tasks and frequent task-switching could cut productivity by up to 80 percent.
The habit is widespread. YouGov found that more than half of Americans check their phones multiple times during social activities such as eating with others or meeting friends.
At work, during a 30-minute meeting, one in four people admitted to checking their phone at least once. After each workplace interruption, it can take more than 25 minutes to regain focus, said Gloria Mark, a researcher at the University of California at Irvine.
So give your brain a boost by going on a tech break.
But be prepared. German researchers from Heidelberg University found that after just 72 hours without smartphone use, brain activity began to mirror patterns typically seen in substance withdrawal.
But that alone should remind us of how important it is to start taking these breaks.
James Emery White
Sources
Amaya Verde and Luis Melgar, “Why Constantly Checking Your Phone Can Drain Your Focus and Memory,” The Washington Post, November 26, 2025, read online.