Despite working full-time for a company in Tokyo, Shoki Moriyama manages to eke out eight hours a day to devote to his smartphone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need my phone to navigate my way through the information wars,\u201d says Moriyama, who at 25 is part of a generation that can\u2019t imagine life without scrolling through news and social media, messaging apps and off-the-wall video clips.<\/p>\n
He is not alone. While excessive smartphone<\/a> use is a worldwide phenomenon, authorities in Japan are taking action, amid growing concern over its physical and psychological toll<\/a>, particularly on children and young people.<\/p>\n Last week, the town of Toyoake in central Japan<\/a> introduced a measure limiting smartphone use among its 69,000 residents to two hours a day<\/a>, in what officials say was an attempt to tackle evidence of online addiction and sleep deprivation. The ordinance \u2013 passed by the town assembly last month \u2013 does not carry penalties for those who ignore it.<\/p>\n Moriyama was among several people, all in their 20s, who accepted the Guardian\u2019s challenge to keep their smartphone use to a maximum of two hours and share their experiences.<\/p>\n There were resounding successes and abject failures.<\/p>\n Shoki Moriyama says two hours of phone use daily is \u2018way too little\u2019. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Moriyama, who habitually checks LINE \u2013 an instant-messaging, news and entertainment \u201csuper app\u201d popular in Japan \u2013 as well as TikTok<\/a>, Instagram and X<\/a>, conceded that staying off the sites, or at least dramatically curtailing his usage, had been a struggle.<\/p>\n \u201cI spend around eight hours a day on my phone, so two hours is way too little \u2026 and not enough time for me to stay up to date with everything,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the end I used my smartphone for an hour and 50 minutes, which is a massive reduction on my usual screen time. I used the extra time to read a book, study a little and go to the gym, so my day wasn\u2019t wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n His colleague Tomomi Hanaoka also managed to rein in her habit. \u201cI spend about three hours on my phone on weekdays and six or seven hours at weekends, so two hours felt very short. Most people need at least three to four hours,\u201d says Hanaoka, who usually \u201ccan\u2019t do\u201d without LINE, TikTok and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI kept my usage to two hours and used the free time to read and do other things.\u201d<\/p>\n Akari Saito, a university student, got her caveats in early, \u201cbecause my personality is such that setting limits on something makes me want to do it more\u201d.<\/p>\n While Saito welcomed the Toyoake initiative as a starting point for a wider discussion of smartphone use, she says the focus should be on the quality, not quantity, of screen time. \u201cAlthough setting a boundary between learning and entertainment could be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite a valiant effort, Saito struggled to make inroads into her daily three to four hours of phone time. \u201cI found it especially hard to put it away during my train commute to school or while I was walking. But I can see that reducing my phone use might make the day feel longer and allow me to spend it more meaningfully.\u201d<\/p>\n Yuri* has already tried to limit her smartphone use, usually when she has exams coming up, even going as far as to hide Instagram and set a password-activated lock for good measure.<\/p>\n She uses her device to check social media, search for recipes, send texts and access study materials, although too much screen time gives her headaches and tired eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cI question why the ordinance directly recommends restricting smartphone use. If the goal is to encourage people to rethink their usage, they should be encouraged to set their own rules,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I broadly agree with the suggested way of smartphone use \u2013 this is because I don\u2019t need my smartphone for my hobbies and interests. But people who mainly use theirs for entertainment and stress relief will find measures like this hard to accept.\u201d<\/p>\n A man uses his smartphone to take a photo in Suzuka, Japan. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Toyoake\u2019s mayor, Masafumi Koki, defended the measure, which drew dozens of complaints from residents who accused the local government of interfering in their private lives.<\/p>\n