I understand the logic behind putting your phone away before bed, but I also understand why so many people ignore that advice.
By the time evening arrives, your phone may be the thing you use to speak to people, watch something, read, listen to music, check the weather, order something you forgot to buy and occasionally investigate the current whereabouts of somebody you have not thought about since school. Stalker. It is doing quite a lot, so I am not going to suggest that your evenings would be transformed if only you had the discipline to place it in another room at eight o'clock and spend the rest of the night reading poetry by candlelight.
Some people genuinely enjoy switching their phones off and forgetting they exist. If you are one of them, lovely. If you are not, we can make the phone a little less involved in the evening without pretending it has suddenly become 1996.
THE PHONE IS NOT REALLY ONE THING
“Screen time” sounds like one behaviour, but watching a programme, reading an article, video-calling somebody, answering a work email and scrolling through short videos are very different experiences.
That distinction matters because research generally finds associations between heavier or bedtime smartphone use and poorer sleep, but the picture in adults is more complicated than the usual internet version suggests. Light is part of the story, particularly when a bright display is used close to the face late in the evening, but what you are doing on the phone matters too. Reading something undemanding is not the same experience as answering work messages, following breaking news or accidentally becoming invested in part seven of a story you did not know existed ten minutes ago.
That is useful because it means we do not have to treat the device itself as contraband. We can be a little more interested in how it is being used.
LET IT HAVE A SMALLER JOB
Rather than deciding that you are no longer allowed to use your phone after a certain time, it may be easier to decide what you still want it for.
Perhaps later in the evening you still want messages, music, an audiobook and whatever you are reading, but you do not particularly need work email, news alerts, shopping notifications or the app you have already opened forty-three times today. The phone can stay exactly where it is while some of its daytime jobs finish.
Notifications are a useful place to start because they are designed to capture attention. Research has shown that receiving one can interrupt attention even when the person does not actually interact with the phone afterwards, which makes muting a few things feel less like an act of digital discipline and more like closing unnecessary doors for the night.
If your family needs to reach you, leave that route open. If an online shop would like to inform you that there is still 20% off knitwear, I think it can manage until morning.
One of the nicest parts of an evening is remembering that not everything requires an immediate response.
A LITTLE DISTANCE CAN DO MORE THAN A LOT OF WILLPOWER
Many of us pick up our phones without consciously deciding to.
You are watching television; the phone is already in your hand and suddenly you are looking at something you had no intention of looking at. Nothing dramatic happened; your thumb simply carried on with its evening.
This is why I like the extremely sophisticated technique of putting the phone slightly further away. I do not mean upstairs or locked in a drawer. The coffee table will do.
If it normally sits in your hand while you watch television, put it beside you instead. If it normally sits beside you, move it somewhere that requires you to lean forward. You can still pick it up whenever you want, but there is now a tiny pause between the impulse and the action, and sometimes that is enough to realise that you did not particularly want it.
Sometimes you will lean forward and pick it up anyway, which is also fine. We are not training for anything.
GIVE SCROLLING SOMEWHERE TO END
Scrolling has one fairly obvious problem from the perspective of an evening: it rarely finishes.
Books have chapters, television programmes have credits and a cup of tea eventually becomes an empty mug. A feed can continue indefinitely, with another post, another video, another article and another argument between two strangers whose entire dispute you somehow understand despite not knowing either of them.
Instead of banning scrolling, give it an ending that already exists in your evening. You might stop when the programme finishes, when you make your last drink, when you go upstairs or when you turn the big light off.
It does not have to happen at the same time every night because the useful part is not the schedule. It is having a natural moment when you notice that you have had enough. The phone can stay where it is; you are simply finished with that bit of it.
DO NOT REPLACE YOUR PHONE WITH SOMETHING YOU HATE
This is where a lot of evening advice loses me. There is little point putting your phone away if you then spend forty minutes resentfully journalling because somebody told you it would be better for you. You do not need to meditate, stretch, do a puzzle, start knitting, read literary fiction or develop a sudden enthusiasm for chamomile tea.
If what you want to do is watch television, watch television. Read something easy, listen to music, have a bath, potter around the kitchen, talk to somebody or sit doing very little.
The alternative needs to be at least as appealing as the phone or we have created punishment and given it a wellness name.
You may not need an alternative at all. The phone can still be beside you while you watch something, and perhaps you simply stop checking it every ninety seconds because fewer things are demanding your attention. That counts.
THE BEDROOM DOESN’T NEED A RULE EITHER
Smartphone use in bed has been associated with later sleep and poorer sleep outcomes in several studies, and research using logged phone behaviour has found links between in-bed use and measures such as taking longer to fall asleep. That is worth knowing, but it is not the same as saying that touching a phone in bed ruins the night.
If you have been scrolling for an hour when you intended to sleep, keeping the phone slightly further away may help. If you are wide awake and reading something undemanding on your phone feels better than lying there becoming increasingly furious about being awake, that is a different situation.
If you are using it late, turning the brightness down and using a warmer display setting can also reduce some of the evening light reaching your eyes. It does not make the phone biologically invisible, but it is a simple adjustment that requires almost nothing from you.
The useful question is not whether you used your phone after an approved hour. It is whether the phone is helping you spend the evening the way you actually want to spend it.
TRY MAKING IT SLIGHTLY LESS INTERESTING
You do not need a screen-free hour. Later this evening, turn the brightness down a little, mute anything that does not need to reach you tonight and put the phone beside you rather than automatically keeping it in your hand. Then carry on with whatever you were already doing.
Watch your programme, have your tea and use the phone if you want it. The only thing to notice is whether you reach for it differently when it is no longer lighting up, making noises and sitting permanently in your palm.
If nothing changes, you have lost approximately thirty seconds setting it up. If you find yourself forgetting about it for a while, even better.
I THINK SCREEN-DOWN SHOULD FEEL LIKE RELIEF
I do not particularly like the idea that we have to spend the evening resisting technology through sheer strength of character. The phone is useful, entertaining and capable of connecting us to an absurd amount of the world from the sofa.
The problem is that the world can then keep walking into the room all evening. Messages arrive, work appears, headlines update, shops make suggestions, apps announce things and somebody posts something that leads you into a conversation involving people who do not know you exist.
A screen-down ritual does not have to mean shutting all of that out. It can simply mean deciding that fewer things get access to you now.
Turn a few notifications off, put the phone down somewhere nearby and let it wait until you actually want it. Nothing has been banned; your evening has just become a little less available.