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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Screens and attention
One young woman described a picture site as the safe one, because there was nowhere for anyone to reply to her. That is a useful way to sort your own use: which apps let strangers speak to you, which decide what comes next, which show you a count. Often most of the damage is coming from one or two of them, and that makes for a smaller and far more possible change than deleting everything.
The life of this world is only a game, a pastime (Quran 47:36). The verse is honest about diversion without asking for everything to go, which is roughly what sorting your apps by what they do amounts to.
محمد
إِنَّمَا ٱلۡحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنۡيَا لَعِبࣱ وَلَهۡوࣱۚ وَإِن تُؤۡمِنُواْ وَتَتَّقُواْ يُؤۡتِكُمۡ أُجُورَكُمۡ وَلَا يَسۡـَٔلۡكُمۡ أَمۡوَٰلَكُمۡ
the life of this world is only a game, a pastime, but if you believe and are mindful of God, He will recompense you. He does not ask you to give up [all] your posses-sions
Qur’an 47:36read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In 448 college students, the risk and protective factors for smartphone addiction were compared directly with those for internet addiction, and the two came out related but not identical. That is a cross-sectional comparison rather than a study of particular platform features. Its message here is a modest one: things filed under a single word can behave quite differently, which is reason enough to look at what you are actually using instead of at the category.
Choi SW, Kim DJ, Choi JS, Ahn H, Choi EJ, Song WY, Kim S, Youn H. (2015). Comparison of risk and protective factors associated with smartphone addiction and Internet addiction.. Journal of behavioral addictions doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The features are what does the harm, so knowing which features are in front of you tells you where to cut.
A young person on the sofa with their phone looks like nothing is happening. From the inside it is often the first hour all day that has asked nothing of them.
Some of what circulates makes being unwell look good. Drugs filmed like a party, low mood styled into something delicate and photogenic, until the illness starts to feel like a personality.
It is a genuine relief to hear that what someone did online may not reflect who they are. Say that gently, and say the other half in the same breath: the people who saw it will judge it as though it does.