If your New Year's resolution is to improve your health, using your phone less is a great place to start.
Studies show that excessive screen time, particularly in adolescents and young adults, can disrupt sleep and psychological health and even lead to dementia-like symptoms such as impaired concentration and memory.
In 2011, Jessica Elefante, then a 32-year-old digital brand strategist and new mom, told Business Insider that she started having concerning symptoms including brain fog and memory loss.
"I was communicating digitally all day long from the second I woke up to the second I went to sleep," Elefante, now 45, told BI. Elefante went to several doctors and was tested for everything from Lyme disease to vitamin deficiencies, with no answers.
A year later, she realized the problem was linked to too much screen time when her then-husband urged her to put her phone away on an eight-day vacation in Hawaii. "It was like a light switch," she said. "Somebody turned my brain back on."
Since then, Elefante wrote "Raising Hell, Living Well," a book chronicling her experiences with being too online. She shared tips on how to effectively reduce screen time and cut down on social media use.
1. Do a 24-hour digital detox
Elefante said that as much as she'd enjoy doing a longer digital detox, it's not realistic for her career as a writer — and that's okay.
She said even 24 hours without a phone, laptop, or screen of any kind helps both as a mental reset and as a way to identify triggers that keep you hooked online.
"You'll see at what point you're reaching for your stuff — and why," Elefante said. She said email tends to be the one she always wants to check first, due to growing up with that technology more.
From her detoxes, she also learned how dependent she is on her phone in social interactions.
"I'm an introvert at heart, anytime I had to do small talk, which is probably my least favorite thing in the entire world, I would put my hand on my back pocket looking for a phone that wasn't there," she said.
2. Set specific days to check social media
While smartphones and social media apps now track screen time and send reminders to close out, Elefante never uses them.
"For me, timers don't work at all," she said. "They make me feel worse. I just snooze them."
Instead, one of her favorite hacks is only allowing herself to check Instagram once every three days.
"You have to be OK with the idea that you're going to miss some potential contacts," she said, since it's common for friends to share memes over social media DMs.
But for Elefante, being slower to respond is a small price to pay for getting time off of the apps.
3. Make meaningful swaps for smartphones
Part of why taking breaks from technology is so difficult is because it feels like you're taking something away instead of adding something new, Elefante said.
"You can't just create a vacuum where it was because you're going to spend your time feeling anxious, like you're missing out on something," she said. "So you have to put something in its place."
Elefante recommends making swaps like reading a physical book on your commute instead of on a tablet or doing crosswords with a pen and paper instead of playing online games.
"I picked up a camera again, an actual film camera, and started to go on walks," Elefante said. "It made it so I didn't feel stressed and anxious when I was without my phone."
4. Get comfortable with saying no
Elefante said that setting these boundaries can be hard, given how enticing social media is designed to be.
"The pull is very, very strong," she said. "For me, it's a constant struggle."
But what keeps her focused on her goal is knowing what's most important to her. After accomplishing her dream of writing a book, she made compromises on how she would promote it.
"I have said no to more things than you can possibly imagine," she said.
