I have a confession that might get my wellness card revoked: I don’t think screens are destroying our brains.

Every week, I see another wellness influencer posting about “digital detoxes” and “screen addiction” as though your iPhone is morally equivalent to a packet of cigarettes. And look, I get it. There are real concerns about how we use technology. But the way the wellness industry talks about screens is often oversimplified, fear-based, and — ironically — designed to keep you scrolling through their content about why you should stop scrolling.

Let’s have a more honest conversation.

The Research Is More Nuanced Than the Headlines

The biggest study on screen time and mental health to date — the Oxford Internet Institute’s analysis of over 350,000 adolescents — found that the negative association between screen time and wellbeing was “tiny.” In fact, the effect was smaller than the negative association between wellbeing and eating potatoes.

That’s not a joke. That’s the actual finding, published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Does that mean screens have zero impact on how we feel? Of course not. But it means the “screens are toxic” narrative is far too blunt.

What the research consistently shows is that how you use screens matters enormously. Passive scrolling — endlessly consuming content without engaging — is linked to lower mood. Active use — messaging friends, creating content, learning something new — often has neutral or even positive effects.

Context matters too. Video calling your mum in Perth is not the same neurological experience as doomscrolling Twitter at midnight.

The Problem With “Digital Detox” Culture

I’ve done a few digital detoxes. Weekend retreats where you hand in your phone and spend three days doing breathwork and eating quinoa. And honestly? They felt great. But here’s the thing — so does any holiday where you’re well-rested, well-fed, and not dealing with work emails.

The benefit wasn’t the absence of screens. It was the presence of rest, connection, and nature.

Digital detox culture frames technology as something we need to periodically purge, like juice cleanses for the mind. But that framing misses the point. Most of us can’t — and shouldn’t have to — regularly abandon the tools that connect us to our communities, our work, and our information.

A better approach? Digital intention. Instead of abstinence, we need skills for conscious use.

What Actually Helps

Here’s what the evidence supports:

Curate your feeds ruthlessly. The algorithm serves you what you engage with. If your social media makes you feel worse, that’s a curation problem, not a screen problem. Unfollow accounts that trigger comparison or anxiety. Follow ones that genuinely inform or uplift.

Set boundaries around reactive use. There’s a difference between opening your phone to check something specific and opening it because you’re bored. The second one is the habit worth examining.

Notice your body. This is where my yoga brain kicks in. When you’ve been on a screen for a while, check in. Are your shoulders up near your ears? Is your jaw clenched? Is your breathing shallow? Those are your signals to take a break — not because screens are bad, but because your body needs variety.

Protect sleep. This is the one area where the screen research is genuinely strong. Blue light exposure within an hour of bedtime does interfere with melatonin production. Use night mode, or better yet, switch to a book or podcast before bed.

Why This Matters for the Wellness Space

I care about this because I think the wellness industry loses credibility when it trades in fear rather than nuance. Telling a working parent that screen time is ruining their health — when screens are how they manage their calendar, connect with friends, attend telehealth appointments, and yes, sometimes just zone out for ten minutes of peace — isn’t helpful. It’s shaming.

We can do better. We can acknowledge that technology is a deeply integrated part of modern Australian life and focus on building healthier relationships with it, rather than pretending we can or should abandon it.

I use my phone to run my business, stay connected to the people I love, track my cycle, follow meditation timers, and occasionally watch cooking videos that have no educational value whatsoever. None of that is a moral failing.

The goal isn’t to live screen-free. The goal is to live intentionally. And that’s a much more useful — and achievable — conversation to have.

The Bottom Line

If scrolling your phone at night is wrecking your sleep, change that habit. If Instagram makes you feel rubbish about your body, unfollow those accounts. If you’re spending hours in a content vortex when you’d rather be doing something else, that’s worth looking at.

But please, can we stop treating screens like a public health emergency on par with smoking? The nuance matters. And in wellness, nuance is often the first casualty of a good marketing campaign.

Let’s be smarter than that.