Four questions decide it, and none of them is your screen time total. Is it taking sleep. Is it taking something you meant to do. Have you tried to cut down and not managed it. Do you feel worse after a session than before it. Two or more yeses is reason enough to change something, whatever the number on the report says.
The four questions, in full
Answer these about the last fortnight, not about your worst ever week.
- **Sleep.** Are you going to bed later than you meant to because of the phone, or waking up and reaching for it before you are properly awake?
- **Displacement.** Is there a thing you keep saying you will do, which the evening keeps going to instead? Not "I should read more". Something specific with a name.
- **Control.** Have you decided to use it less, meant it, and not managed it? How many times?
- **After.** Not during. During is fine, or you would not do it. How do you feel in the ten minutes after you put it down?
If you answered yes to two, you have enough to act on. You do not need a fifth question, and you certainly do not need a label.
Why nobody is going to give you a diagnosis
There is no recognised condition for this anywhere. The American Psychiatric Association is explicit that its proposed research condition for gaming ["is limited to gaming and does not include problems with general use of the internet, online gambling, or use of social media or smartphones"](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming), and on the same page, that ["Gambling disorder is the only behavioral addiction (as opposed to chemical substance use disorders) identified in DSM-5-TR"](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming).
People take that badly, and they take it the wrong way round. It does not mean your problem is imaginary. It means there is no threshold you can cross that would suddenly make it official, and no score that will tell you that you are allowed to be bothered. You are allowed to be bothered because it is costing you something.
It also cuts the other way, which is worth hearing on a bad night. Researchers looking at how the field has grown warn that ["recent publications have suggested that nearly all daily life activities might lead to a genuine addiction"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26014667/). If you spend two hours a day on a feed, enjoy most of it, sleep fine and turn up to your life, you do not have a disorder. You have a hobby that a certain kind of article would like to sell you a cure for.
Hours are a bad measure, and here is why
The screen time report flatters and frightens in roughly equal measure. Three hours of video calls with family reads the same as three hours of scrolling at 1am. An hour of maps while driving reads worse than forty minutes that ended in a fight.
The research on total use tells the same story from the other end. An analysis of three large datasets covering 355,358 people found the association between digital technology use and adolescent wellbeing was ["negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30944443/).
Nought point four per cent. That is the entire measured relationship between how much people use and how well they are, across a third of a million people. Which is a useful thing to know when a number in a settings screen is making you feel like a failure.
The direction of the arrow is not settled either. All four UK Chief Medical Officers reviewed the evidence and wrote that ["This research does not present evidence of a causal relationship between screen-based activities and mental health problems"](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews), adding that ["it could be, for example, that CYP who already have mental health problems are more likely to spend more time on social media"](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews). They still recommend a precautionary approach, and so do we. Cheap changes, judged on what they cost you.
The one place the evidence is genuinely strong
Sleep. If you want a single test that is worth trusting, it is this one.
A review of 20 studies covering 125,198 children found ["a strong and consistent association between bedtime media device use and inadequate sleep quantity (odds ratio [OR], 2.17; 95% CI, 1.42-3.32)"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/). The detail that changes what you do tonight is the second finding: children who had access to a device at night without using it were still more likely to sleep badly, at an odds ratio of 1.79.
Two caveats, honestly. Those were children, average age around fourteen. And the studies were cross-sectional, single snapshots, so they cannot tell you which way the arrow runs. Even so, if your answer to question one was yes, that is the part of your use with the most evidence behind it and the cheapest fix available.
What "a problem" actually looks like from inside
People expect a problem to feel dramatic. Mostly it feels like this.
- You open the app without deciding to, and notice you are in it.
- You have closed it and reopened it inside the same minute.
- You know exactly which account or which kind of post makes you feel worst, and you go there anyway.
- You have said "I'm getting off this" out loud to somebody.
- Evenings have a shape now, and the shape is the phone.
None of those is a symptom of anything with a name. All of them are worth acting on. If you want to see your own pattern rather than guess at it, [log a day properly](/guides/social_media/when-do-you-actually-pick-up-the-phone) before you change anything. A before is worth more than a plan.
If the answer is yes, what then
Start with the cheapest change that touches your worst answer.
If sleep was the yes, move the charger out of the bedroom tonight and buy an alarm clock so the argument stops. If displacement was the yes, put the thing you keep not doing in the calendar with a start time, because "read more" fails and "swim at seven on Tuesday" survives. If control was the yes, the problem is not resolve, it is that the app is one tap away at your weakest hour, and the answer is friction. [Three changes you can make today](/guides/social_media/how-to-stop-doomscrolling) covers those.
If you are somewhere between cutting down and coming off entirely, [the honest case for each](/guides/social_media/delete-or-limit-social-media) is worth reading before you do something at 1am you will undo by Thursday.
The line where this stops being about the phone
Some of what people call a social media problem is a mood problem wearing a phone. The tell is that the feeling is there before you open the app and still there after you have been off it for a fortnight.
That is not a settings issue and no amount of greyscale will touch it. Talk to a GP. If it is worse than that, in the UK you can call Samaritans on 116 123 at any hour, or NHS 111 and press option 2 for urgent mental health support. Neither will tell you that you are wasting their time.
Common questions
**How many hours a day counts as an addiction?** There is no number, because there is no diagnosis to qualify for. The largest analysis of total use found it explained at most 0.4% of the variation in wellbeing across 355,358 people. Judge it by cost instead: sleep, the thing displaced, whether you can stop when you decide to.
**Is there a test I can take?** Screening questionnaires exist, and they measure how much you agree with statements about your own use. None of them diagnoses anything, because there is nothing to diagnose. The four questions at the top of this page will get you to the same decision faster.
**Everyone I know is like this. Does that mean it is normal?** Common and harmless are different things. Common does mean you are not defective, which is worth holding on to. If it is costing you sleep or the thing you meant to do, it is worth changing whether or not your friends are changing theirs.
**I feel awful after scrolling but I still do it. Why?** Because the feeling that starts a session and the feeling that ends one are not the same feeling, and only the first one gets a vote. The reach usually comes from boredom, tiredness or a difficult moment. That is why substitutes and friction beat resolve, and why the fix goes in before the evening starts.
Sources
- [American Psychiatric Association, Internet Gaming](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming). The proposed gaming condition excluding social media and smartphone use, and gambling disorder being the only behavioural addiction in DSM-5-TR.
- [The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use, Nature Human Behaviour 2019](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30944443/). The 355,358 people and the association explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in wellbeing.
- [UK Chief Medical Officers' commentary on screen-based activities and children and young people's mental health](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews). No evidence of a causal relationship, the possibility the direction runs the other way, and the precautionary approach.
- [Association Between Portable Screen-Based Media Device Access or Use and Sleep Outcomes, JAMA Pediatrics 2016](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/). The 20 studies, 125,198 children, and access without use.
