{"id":25624,"date":"2025-07-26T18:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T18:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/25624\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T18:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T18:40:10","slug":"a-smarter-life-meet-the-gen-zers-who-are-switching-off-their-smartphones-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/25624\/","title":{"rendered":"A smarter life? Meet the Gen-Zers who are switching off their smartphones \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not easy to catch Jack Brocklebank on his smartphone. The 23-year-old often lets his battery die, or abandons the phone somewhere in his house. If he makes an appointment to meet someone, the Trinity<\/a> graduate sticks to it: no changing. \u201cMy mam laughs at me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like back in the day when there was only a phone box. Once I have a plan, I am committed. It\u2019s like, \u2018Call me once. Make the plan and I\u2019ll show up. If you\u2019re not there, I\u2019m not going to get your text.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a growing number of people his age, Brocklebank is making an active choice to downgrade his use of phones and social media<\/a>. He took the decision following Covid<\/a> when his screen time rocketed. \u201cI was on screens 14-16 hours a day,\u201d he says. \u201cI would have been on Zooms until three o\u2019clock every morning. I used to have 100-and-something Snapchat streaks, of people I would text every day. I wasn\u2019t going for walks. I wasn\u2019t sleeping. I\u2019m only now readjusting.\u201d <\/p>\n

Did his phone use feel like an addiction? \u201cIt\u2019s entirely addictive,\u201d he says. \u201cThere can be withdrawals. Like, I would get very irritable, very snappy, very short-tempered … Say I were to go off my phone for four hours, and then if I went back on and I didn\u2019t have a text or a notification, I\u2019d do something like post on Instagram, so I\u2019d be like, \u2018Oh people are liking that, they still care.\u2019 And if that wasn\u2019t getting as many likes, you\u2019d have to delete it, and then stop on your phone for a few days. I was caught in this vicious cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days, things are very different. \u201cI\u2019m on my phone less and I\u2019m happier,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not going, \u2018Oh, do people think I\u2019m good-looking on Instagram<\/a>?\u2019 Or, \u2018Do my friends care about me?\u2019 I\u2019m also spending more time with them in person. Even my mam is on the phone more than me. My phone did have a lot of power over me, but at this point it could just go missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the early days of smartphones, there was a sense of excitement about the possibilities the technology could bring: that the internet could democratise opportunity and offer access to information almost instantaneously. Now in its place has come a widespread unease. Educators report that young people, used to gamified social media, struggle to focus at school. Phones have a zombifying effect where people scroll but can\u2019t remember, once they put the phone down, what they\u2019ve been watching. There is a greater understanding that algorithms are driving the content people see. <\/p>\n

\u201cYour attention is a currency,\u201d says Garret Nugent, an 18-year-old secondary school student from Dublin, who has also decided to restrict his use of social media. \u201cI realised if my attention was valuable to companies, I should pay more attention to where I was putting it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now coming into his Leaving Cert year, Nugent has deleted TikTok<\/a> and keeps a tight rein on his screen time. \u201cI got rid of a lot of apps,\u201d he says. \u201cTikTok is marketed as a way of relaxing, but it\u2019s not relaxing. You feel hollow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent first got a smartphone at 13, having been given a flip-phone around the age of 10. A keen musician, it wasn\u2019t long after he started using social media that he realised his piano and harp playing was suffering owing to the time he was spending scrolling. He decided to wrest back control after he\u2019d been home sick from school and spent the whole day on TikTok. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was outrageous,\u201d he says. \u201cI spent 11 hours on TikTok. I would have been 14 or 15.\u201d What was he watching? \u201cThe worst part is you don\u2019t really remember. There was a lot of Minecraft. I got a lot of \u2018fun fact\u2019 ones, like about \u2018Oh, this guy invented penicillin.\u2019 Comedy sketches were very common.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GarretGarret Nugent: ‘It was outrageous. I spent 11 hours on TikTok’ <\/p>\n

Nugent\u2019s smartphone usage these days is considered. \u201cIt\u2019s about deciding what you\u2019re using your phone for,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d rather watch videos I choose of something I\u2019m interested in than spending hours scrolling things, barely deciding to watch them.\u201d Factoring in the use of pragmatic apps such as Google Maps, Nugent\u2019s screen time is around three hours a day. \u201cFor the moment, I feel like I have things in a solid place,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m comfortable with how I\u2019m using my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Social media is destroying young people\u2019s mental health. Why do we keep tiptoeing around this reality?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It takes a certain maturity to be able to zoom out and look at your life online with such critical appraisal. It\u2019s also indicative of a new generation of young people who are feeling the burn from their phones, and want to control their smartphone usage to improve their mental health and deepen their attention spans. <\/p>\n

According to a recent report by GWI, a research institute which surveyed the views of 20,000 young people and their parents across 18 countries, the number of 12- to 15-year-olds who take breaks from their smart screens rose by 18 per cent to 40 per cent since 2022. Another survey conducted by the British Standards Institution found that almost half of young people said they would rather live in a world<\/a> where the internet did not exist. <\/p>\n

Are young people scared of their smartphones? That might be a stretch, but there is certainly a growing degree of caution among some. <\/p>\n

Nuala Whittle, a 26-year-old masters student from Co Wicklow now living in Berlin, is still on Instagram, but has a timer set to go off after 30 minutes to remind her of how long she\u2019s using it every day. She\u2019s wary about the messaging that comes to her via social media apps, particularly in relation to body image. \u201cMy main source of weight questioning came from a really early age from Instagram and Tumblr,\u201d she says. \u201cAt the time, I was too young to realise how damaging that would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did she see? Whittle reels off the video and picture messaging that would flash up on her feed. \u201cTips for \u2018here\u2019s how you can go your whole day without fainting\u2019. And, \u2018here\u2019s how you can keep it under 100 calories per day\u2019. Or \u2018here\u2019s how you should make up for the green apple you ate\u2019. That was mostly Instagram. At the time they had a caveat saying, \u2018you might see some harmful images\u2019. Of course when you\u2019re 16, you\u2019re like, \u2018I want to see the harmful images. I\u2019m big and mature.\u2019 You look at it with a morbid fascination, but there\u2019s a part of you that\u2019s like, should I be paying attention to this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NualaNuala Whittle: ‘When you\u2019re 16, you\u2019re like, I want to see the harmful images \u2013 I\u2019m big and mature’ <\/p>\n

Whittle didn\u2019t talk to her friends and family about what she was witnessing. \u201cYou just kept it to yourself,\u201d she says. \u201cYou never spoke to friends about whether they were going down the same rabbit holes, or acting on the things they saw.\u201d <\/p>\n

A private unease built up in Whittle. \u201cI saw a lot of very graphic self-harm content. I was like, \u2018Should I be seeing this?\u2019 And you never say it. Because when I was growing up, we didn\u2019t have the same awareness of the fact that images are marketed to people. And depending on what demographic you are, you get a certain type of content. Your age is dictating a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n

Whittle now tries hard to restrict her Instagram use, but still regularly hits two hours a day on the app. She feels the marketing targeted at her has changed as she has grown older. \u201cWhen I was young, it was weight-based. Now it\u2019s this trend towards anti-ageing. My current marketing is a lot of Botox and filler and tweakments and \u2018here\u2019s these tiny things that you can do to not age any more than this\u2019. I\u2019m also seeing a lot of celebrities, and \u2018here\u2019s a breakdown of what they have had done\u2019. When I was in New York, I saw girls of 10 or 12 in Sephora looking at anti-ageing products. Because now the marketing is \u2018prevention is the best cure, you have to start early\u2019. They were in these brightly lit make-up chairs, dissecting their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young girls can be seriously impacted by social media use. In a 2025 survey by social enterprise the Shona Project<\/a>, 52 per cent of teenage girls said filters and editing apps negatively affect their self-esteem. <\/p>\n

But teenage boys face profound challenges too. \u201cI had stealthily censored pornographic images pop up on my Instagram when I was in my early teens,\u201d says Tadhg McLoughlin, a 23-year-old from Clondalkin in Dublin. \u201cIt would be accounts run by OnlyFans models where they\u2019d post themselves dancing and then you\u2019d go to a profile, and it would be like, \u2018Click my link\u2019. Two years ago, I had really explicit, pornographic images pop up on my \u2018For you\u2019 page on TikTok. I reported it. With kids and teens, there\u2019s a lot of preying on morbid curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

A student of screenwriting in D\u00fan Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, McLoughlin has spent years trying to restrict his social media use, with some successes and failures. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to get off the phone, particularly social media,\u201d he says. \u201cI deleted TikTok for three months and then my girlfriend was giving out that she couldn\u2019t send my TikToks so I redownloaded it, but I think I\u2019m going to delete it again. The content is horrible. I don\u2019t remember half the stuff I see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TadhgTadhg McLoughlin: ‘I think I\u2019m going to delete Tiktok again. The content is horrible.’ Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Even when young people try to get off their smartphones, invariably they wind up back on them again, their hand forced by the demands of the modern world. Ita Mac Carthy is mother to 13-year-old Sandy. \u201cSandy got rid of his smartphone for a flip-phone for a good six months,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe reintroduced the smartphone when he went on a school trip abroad so we could contact him by WhatsApp<\/a>, and now he\u2019s on Instagram. I\u2019m not sure how long he\u2019ll keep Instagram or his smartphone: they don\u2019t make him happy and he knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Smartphones are an easy scapegoat for a more profound unhappinessOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Trying to reduce screen time is like playing a game of Whac-a-Mole: once you put the phone away, a compelling reason pops up to use it \u2013 you might need WhatsApp for a video call with family abroad, Revolut to pay someone for gig tickets or to split a restaurant bill, the camera to scan a QR code, or even email just to keep up with homework. \u201cMy school uses Teams, Microsoft Word, the whole Microsoft package,\u201d Nugent says. \u201cI also need my smartphone for navigation: I use Google Maps a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n

Two-factor identification messages ping in while you\u2019re already using a screen: a laptop. \u201cI was applying for my driving licence and it kept sending me text verifications,\u201d Brocklebank says. \u201cBanking is one of the main things. You have to run after your phone to send confirmations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can so-called dumbphones \u2013 the app-less, old-fashioned mobile phones \u2013 help? Not really, the young people interviewed for this article report. Smartphones are designed to be central to our lives and inseparable from our person. We need them to function in the modern world.<\/p>\n

According to research firm Data Insights Analysis, sales of dumbphones will decline by 1.3 per cent in 2025. \u201cI wish I could live comfortably with a 2007 flip-phone,\u201d McLoughlin says. \u201cIdeally I would just have calls and texts and maybe a camera for pictures, or email. But I just don\u2019t see things going that way, where that\u2019s even a possible choice, because of the culture we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

FOMO, or the fear of missing out<\/a>, is a large part of what forces people back on to smartphones and social media: WhatsApp and Facebook<\/a> groups can be vital for our social or work lives. There\u2019s a secondary aspect too: the craving most of us have for the warm, fuzzy feeling of validation that comes with social media usage \u2013 with the likes, reposts and thumbs up \u2013 and the pinpricks of insecurity if we aren\u2019t online. <\/p>\n

Brocklebank would get upset sometimes if he went offline for a time, only to find a low number of unread messages waiting for him when he logged back on to social media. \u201cIt was, \u2018Am I still friends with that person?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI was so sure they didn\u2019t like me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"JackJack Brocklebank: ‘My phone did have a lot of power over me.’ Photograph: Tom Honan <\/p>\n

In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores<\/a> how smartphones fuel insecurity and encourage constant social comparison among young people. Haidt believes great structural strides must be taken \u2013 by placing responsibility on governments and technology companies \u2013 to protect young people from their smartphones. Many Irish professionals working in education and mental health agree. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s causing mayhem in our school and I\u2019m sure in lots of other schools that are not discussing it because we\u2019re caught between a rock and a hard place because of confidentiality,\u201d says Mary*, a primary schoolteacher in Munster. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen first-hand the impact it\u2019s having on very young children after Holy Communion when they\u2019re being given access to mobile phones. It\u2019s impacting their mental health, their social interactions. We were saying in school it should be a Department of Health not a Department of Education topic because of the impact it\u2019s having.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countries including France, the Netherlands, Italy and Luxembourg have introduced school-wide bans on phones during the day. Earlier this summer, the Department of Education stopped short of banning smartphone use for post-primary students, but issued a new directive for primary schools to bring in new policies that ban the use of smartphones during the school day. <\/p>\n

Rachel Harper, principal at St Patrick\u2019s National School in Greystones, is the founder of It Takes A Village, which signed up eight primary schools in the catchment area in 2023 to a no smartphone voluntary code until the children reached secondary school. <\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back two years ago, nobody was talking about this,\u201d she says. \u201cParents were quietly worrying about it, but were afraid to speak too much because they didn\u2019t want to come across as judgmental to other parents.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"RachelRachel Harper, principal of St Patrick’s National School in Greystones, Co Wicklow. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

For Harper, who is on the HSE Therapeutic Wellbeing Pilot project steering group, it\u2019s vital to normalise such conversations. \u201cAll of us working together, that\u2019s how we\u2019re going to get change. There have to be a lot more restrictions with the tech companies themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the change has to come from within. Eighteen-year-old Nugent has a variety of tools to ensure he doesn\u2019t idle away his days on social media. \u201cI had Minimalist Phone from the start of third year,\u201d he says. \u201cI deleted it and re-downloaded it. I\u2019ve had it now without deleting it for maybe a year and a half.\u201d <\/p>\n

Minimalist Phone is an app that helps users to navigate social media in a mindful way. \u201cIt changes your phone screen so you have to search for apps if you want to go into them,\u201d he says. \u201cBefore opening certain apps, you can get a timer and you have to wait for a bit before opening the app. I also got an app called NoScroll \u2013 you can block certain websites. You can block YouTube shorts in YouTube \u2013 that solved that issue for me: a lot of the things posted there are just TikToks, posted in YouTube.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Excessive use of social media creating generation of \u2018broken people\u2019, psychiatrist saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

McLoughlin has a Gameboy for his long bus journeys to college. \u201cIf I want to entertain myself, I have a specific game, a piece of media, that I\u2019m going to engage in, and I\u2019m controlling the environment,\u201d he says. And he has a notepad, not a Notes app. \u201cI\u2019ll write things down physically on paper. I\u2019ll keep my notepad with me all the time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Brocklebank has spent a lot of time reflecting on the hold his phone once had on him, and what it means to him to have freedom from it. Letting his phone run out of battery helps him appreciate the magnitude of the spell that was once cast on him. \u201cOne day I was standing in the rain and my phone died and I was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m holding a brick now,\u2019\u201d he relates. \u201cIt took away a lot of the phone\u2019s power.\u201d <\/p>\n

As for Nuala Whittle in Berlin? She has a sharper, more brutal tactic to reduce her smartphone use. \u201cThrow it,\u201d she says, with a laugh. \u201cWhen you want to stop using your phone, launch it as far away from you as you can towards a surface that won\u2019t break it. If you\u2019re on the bed, throw it on to the couch. If you\u2019re on the couch, throw it on to the carpet. And then, if you\u2019re really comfortable in the chair, just rely on the fact that you\u2019re so comfortable that you don\u2019t want to get up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you have to do silly things,\u201d Whittle concludes. \u201cLiterally: just throw it away.\u201d<\/p>\n

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