Phone Addiction Scientist: Doing This Gives You An Hour Back Every Day! | Dr Sahar Yousef

Dr. Sahar Yousef says task switching can theoretically cost 60% of productivity, while the average knowledge worker spends more than two hours a day bouncing between tasks and screens. She also says distractions impair memory and learning because people cannot remember what they do not attend to.

Yousef argues that engagement incentives can conflict with user productivity: communication-software vendors use engagement figures to support renewals, and retaining users can produce billion-dollar outcomes. She says technology companies have hired researchers with her expertise since 2010–14 to help increase engagement.

Yousef says technology defaults such as infinite scroll lack a natural stopping point, while intermittent, variable rewards can be more addictive than consistent ones; she compares social-media algorithms using that mechanism to slot machines. In her lab’s study, participants using grayscale phones spent an average of one hour less on their phones per day.

Yousef distinguishes incoming notifications from distractions people seek when work becomes difficult or uncomfortable, describing phones as a fast, cheap escape from uncomfortable feelings. She cites a study in which some participants chose electric shocks rather than sit quietly to illustrate discomfort with silence.

Yousef describes the brain as a monotasking machine and says reducing noise is an easier first step than increasing the signal. She notes that roughly one-third of the cortex is devoted to looking and listening, which helps explain why activity and noise in open offices can draw attention.