Psychological and emotional effects

Continuous phone use goes beyond distractions due to the psychological conditioning that comes with it. The brain becomes attached and conditioned to grasp a sense of satisfaction from either messages or social validation, which messes with the ability to feel happiness outside of a screen. Spending an excessive amount of time with screens can increase emotional irritability and instability because of the consistent streams of information without disconnection.

Academic Articles Discussing Effects

There are many sleep studies in association with mobile phones and mental health. Provided below are articles exploring mental health and the variety of mental health issues that may come with phone usage and sleep.

Mobile Phone Addiction and Sleep Quality among Older People: The Mediating Roles of Depression and Loneliness.

Tian, Huijun, and Yanhong Wang. Behavioral Sciences, vol. 13, no. 2, 2023, p. 153. MDPI, https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13020153.

This article investigates the relationship between sleep quality in older people in China and mobile phone addiction and how depression and loneliness are factors in both quality and addiction. A direct quote from this article states “excessive reliance on virtual platforms will inevitably reduce interpersonal communication … when psychological support, in reality, is missing” (Tain and Wang 22).

Mobile Phone Addiction and Sleep Quality: The Mediating Role of Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Emotion Regulation.

Gong, Li, and Qiang Liu., Behavioral Sciences (2076-328X), vol. 13, no. 3, Mar. 2023, p. 250. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13030250.

While exploring the emotional states of college students, the article reports a significant connection between anxiety, mobile phone addiction, and sleep quality. A direct quote from the article is “mobile phone addicts are more likely to experience anxiety due to psychological or physiological reasons, and excessive anxiety will damage their sleep quality. Therefore, anxiety is a mediating factor between MPA [Mobile Phone Addiction] and sleep quality” (Gong and Liu 17).

Associations between Social Media Addiction, Social Media Fatigue, Fear of Missing out, and Sleep Quality among University Students in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Rahman, Moinur, et al., Journal of Health, Population & Nutrition, vol. 44, no. 1, May 2025, pp. 1–16. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-025-00896-1.

This article investigates the relationship between social media addiction and how a phenomenon entitled fear of missing out (FoMO) relates to sleep quality in university students. A direct quote from the article states "Higher FoMO scores are greatly associated with poor sleep quality" (Rahman et al. 43).

Mobile Phone Reliance

The convenience of phones offers quick and easy solutions to real world and mental issues as people constantly want to escape negative emotions. However, this dependency intersection with coping mechanisms negatively affects how people genuinely self regulate. Without proper self-regulation, there is an amplification in emotional instability because of phone dependency and the prevention of healthy coping mechanisms.

How Your Phone is Destroying Your Mental Health

Here is a video from a therapist about reasons why mobile phones could be a destructive outlet on mental health. Youtuber, Calmly Coping, explains how online exposure can mess with varying insecurities and how constantly being connected can leave users in a state of anxiety.