Adults Need Exitbait Too: The Case for Less Screen Time

The obstacle is obvious. Pervasive technology, the internet, and in particular the screens that dominate our lives, have become the defining feature of daily existence. The finest minds and richest budgets in the world are working to keep us on our screens for as long as possible.

Consider the UK’s National Year of Reading, currently underway with donor and government funding and sixty partners. It aims to reverse the steep reduction in reading - amongst children and adults alike, for pleasure and for work. As Maryanne Wolfe put it in “Reader Come Home”:

“…the act of reading is a special place in which human beings are freed from themselves to pass over to others and, in so doing, learn what it means to be another person with aspirations, doubts, and emotions that they might otherwise never have known.”

With respect to everyone involved, they are probably spitting into the wind. Despite the celebrity support and strong publicity, the chances of reversing the decline in reading feel remote. This is David versus Goliath, without the happy ending. We might rage against the machine, but the machine is winning.

Social media carries real risks for some – access to harmful content, harassment, negative impacts on mental health. But the broader crisis is less dramatic and more universal. We are all losing hours we will never get back.

Governments have begun to act. The UK, for example, has issued new guidance for parents of under-fives, and many countries are considering a ban on social media for under-16s following Australia’s lead.

But what about the rest of us? What examples are we setting our children as we try to regulate their behavior? What are we doing to ourselves in the average five hours of leisure time we spend staring into our phones?

This is not a situation that society necessarily needs to accept.

This year’s BBC Reith Lecturer, Rutger Bregman, has called for a new temperance movement – designed to reduce screen addiction in the same way the first temperance movement aimed to reduce alcoholism 150 years ago. It’s the right instinct.

But in the same way the temperance movement sometimes felt elitist and patronizing, we need practical, realistic ways to change our behaviors. Smug columns about “digital detoxes” won’t cut it. Full-day phone bans are unaffordable – financially and practically – for most of us.  What we need are realistic, incremental changes that shift norms without shaming anyone.

So what might this actually look like? Governments could establish a recommended daily maximum screen time for adults, as a 2022 study from Leeds University suggested, and set goals for reductions, with places competing against each other.

Bars and cafes could close down Wi-Fi for a few hours each day. The tech companies themselves could be encouraged – or pressured – into playing a part. We know that Silicon Valley executives don’t let their own children near screens. What if some of those same fine minds developed “exitbait”: subtle, algorithm-informed nudges designed to send you back to your actual life and, in the words of the 1970s children’s show, "Why Don’t You…?", “switch off your phone and do something less boring instead.”

Individuals, including online influencers, could go public about their screen time and set goals to cut it. Norms can shift faster than we think. Remember the early days of COVID-19, when nobody walked and scrolled simultaneously because they were too frightened of bumping into someone infected? The screen zombie briefly died. We could try to kill it off again.

Perhaps we could start by making 2027 the International Year of Looking Up, or the Year of Less Screen Time. There is no shortage of international years on the UN calendar, but none feel as urgent as the global need to change how we use our screens.

All our norms need changing, not just our children’s.