When was the last time you checked your phone? A minute ago? Maybe even a few seconds ago? For many of us, our phones have become extensions of our arms, and we find ourselves checking them constantly. Immediate access to a world of digital stimulation has made us dependent on these devices, but why is the urge so hard to resist? A recent study by Pancani et al. (2023) looks toward delay discounting for the answer.
What Is Delay Discounting?
It’s the tendency to choose smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards. In other words, it’s instant gratification. The phenomenon applies to all kinds of behaviors, from choosing instant noodles over cooking a homemade Pad Thai to skipping workouts in favor of binge-watching our favorite shows. And, yes, it also explains why we can’t resist checking our phones.
Pancani et al. tested how delay discounting influences smartphone use by creating a fictional scenario in an experiment: Imagine your phone is dead. You have two choices: Either get a small, immediate battery recharge and use your phone right away (but only for a short time) or wait for a full charge and use it for much longer. Turns out, most people couldn’t wait and opted for the instant gratification.
Why Don’t We Know Better?
Delay-discounting isn’t just about poor self-control or an inability to think rationally. Villmoare et al. (2023) explore in their research how delay discounting is actually deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. For more than 95 percent of human history, we lived as hunter-gatherers in unpredictable environments. Food was scarce, survival was uncertain, and planning too far ahead wasn’t always practical. If you found a bush full of ripe berries, you wouldn’t save them for later–you’d eat them before someone (or something) else did. Immediate rewards were often the safest option for our survival. It wasn’t until relatively recently, with the development of agriculture, long-term food storage, and immediate access to our basic needs, that planning for the future became a key survival skill. Unfortunately, our brains haven’t caught up to the modern-day world, and in many ways are still wired for short-term thinking.
The Smartphone Trap
So, how does this relate to our compulsive smartphone use? Well, smartphones are designed to trigger our delay discounting tendencies. Social media notifications, instant messages, and endless scrolling provide constant and immediate rewards. Our brains crave these surges in dopamine (the neurochemical that regulates reward and pleasure-seeking behaviours), making it incredibly hard to put our phones down, even when we know it’s not the best use of our time.
How to Outsmart Instant Gratification
So, can we really resist compulsive use of smartphones and learn to develop better delay of gratification in the modern world of near-constant digital connection? Absolutely! Here are a few strategies to help you regain control:
- Learn about how your brain works: Recognizing that your brain is wired for instant gratification can help you make more conscious decisions. Teenagers‘ brains are still developing, making them more vulnerable to problematic or compulsive smartphone use. Next time you reach for your phone, ask yourself: Do I need to check it right now?
- Create friction: Make it harder to indulge in impulsive behaviors. Keep your phone in another room, schedule phone breaks to increase productivity, or set up app limits to reduce mindless scrolling. As you begin to replace the habit with other activities, slowly reduce the number of phone checks you allow yourself to help kick the instant gratification habit.
- Use the 10-minute rule: When tempted by an immediate reward, tell yourself you’ll wait at least 10 minutes before doing it. Cravings often take as little as 10 minutes to pass.
- Identify your main motivation: Identifying the reasons for spending so much time on smartphones and social media, and the needs that digital media is meeting (boredom, entertainment, habit, distraction from stress/distress, social, etc.) will help you identify other alternatives that better meet your short- and long-term emotional needs.
- Focus on long-term goals: Remind yourself of the bigger picture. Try writing down a few of your long-term goals and visualize them. By making them more tangible, you’re more likely to avoid distractions and choose the more productive option that may not be as pleasurable in the short term but will have bigger long-term benefits.
- Make a game out of it: If you resist checking your phone for an hour, treat yourself to something enjoyable afterward, but try to avoid screen or food-related rewards.
Delay discounting isn’t just a smartphone problem; it’s a fundamental part of human (and nonhuman) decision-making. By understanding why we’re wired this way and taking small steps toward counteracting it, we can learn to make better long-term choices, stay present, and maybe—just maybe—put our phones down once in a while.