Part 2: Social Media, Gaming, and the Nervous System
In Part 1, we looked at how social media and games use novelty, feedback, and unpredictable rewards to keep us engaged, and why that can be especially hard for adolescents to step away from. We also considered what heavy screen use may crowd out, including sleep, connection, and time to practice handling uncomfortable feelings. So where do we go from there? A useful next step is to ask what the screen is helping someone do in the first place.
When someone keeps reaching for a screen, limits alone may not tell us what needs to change. It helps to ask what the screen is doing for them in that moment.
What Is the Screen Helping Them Do?
Sometimes the answer is simply: have fun. Sometimes it is:
“It helps me calm down.”
“It's the only place I feel connected.”
“I don't have to think about everything happening at home.”
“I'm bored.”
“I don't know what else to do.”
“I can finally shut my brain off.”
“I feel successful when I'm playing.”
“It's easier than dealing with what I'm feeling.”
This is where I find an Internal Family Systems perspective particularly useful. Rather than immediately labeling the behavior as bad, addictive, lazy, or defiant, we can become curious about the part of the person that keeps reaching for the screen.
What is that part trying to accomplish? Maybe it is protecting against loneliness. Maybe it is helping someone avoid anxiety. Maybe it provides a sense of competence or belonging. Maybe it is giving a chronically overwhelmed nervous system a predictable place to land. That doesn't mean the behavior is necessarily healthy or that there shouldn't be boundaries. Understanding a protective strategy is not the same thing as approving of it. In fact, I often find that sustainable change begins when we stop fighting the behavior long enough to understand what function it is serving. What is the need underneath it all?
The Regulation Loop
A simple way to think about it is: Uncomfortable internal state → reach for stimulation → temporary relief → repeat
The uncomfortable state might be anxiety, loneliness, boredom, sadness, anger, overwhelm, or simply the discomfort of having nothing to distract us. The screen changes the experience quickly. And that quick change matters. If my nervous system learns, “When I feel uncomfortable, this makes me feel better almost immediately,” reaching for the phone or turning on the game becomes an increasingly well-practiced response. This is one reason simply saying “Just stop” often doesn't work. We're not only trying to change behavior. We're asking the person to develop another way of responding to the underlying emotional state.
So What Do We Do?
This is where I think we sometimes get stuck. We focus so heavily on removing the screen that we forget to build what needs to replace it. (Again the problem is not really the problem) If the phone is helping someone regulate loneliness, we need a connection. If gaming is providing competence, we need opportunities to experience mastery elsewhere. If scrolling is helping someone escape anxiety, we need tools for tolerating and regulating anxiety. If the screen is providing a break from an overwhelming environment, we need to create actual opportunities for rest. And sometimes, before we change anything, we need to learn how to disengage without immediately becoming dysregulated.
A Few Tools to Begin Practicing
Notice Before You Reach: Before automatically picking up the phone, pause for 10 seconds and ask: “What am I feeling right now?” You don't have to fix it. Just notice.
Name the Function: Ask: What am I hoping this will do for me? Maybe the answer is distract me, calm me down, entertain me, connect me, or help me not think. That information is valuable data.
Practice the Pause—Not Necessarily Abstinence: Instead of going from unlimited use to complete restriction, practice creating a small space between the urge and the behavior.
Take a few breaths.
Stand up, go for a short walk around your space, maybe even one lap around the block.
Get a glass of water.
Look outside.
Stretch.
Then decide whether you still want to pick up the phone. The goal is to begin strengthening awareness and choice.
Create a Transition Ritual: For children, adolescents, and adults alike, transitions are often easier when they are predictable. Instead of “GET OFF YOUR GAME!” try establishing a consistent transition:
10-minute warning → 5-minute warning → finish current activity → stand up → water/snack → move into the next activity.
This isn't permissive. It's helping the nervous system shift states.
Don't Use Disconnection as the Punishment: If the behavior you're trying to change is already serving a connection or regulation function, completely removing it without addressing the underlying need can sometimes intensify the struggle. Boundaries still matter, but boundaries work best when they are paired with connection, consistency, and replacement strategies.
Learn to Tolerate a Little Boredom: This one is harder than it sounds. We have become remarkably uncomfortable with empty space. Try taking a short walk without your phone. Sit in the car for a few minutes without immediately reaching for stimulation. Eat a meal without scrolling. Let yourself be bored. Boredom isn't an emergency. Sometimes it is simply a nervous system adjusting to less stimulation.
The Goal Isn’t to Eliminate Technology
The goal isn’t to demonize technology. Screens are part of our world; they can provide entertainment, education, creativity, community, connection, and sometimes genuine support. The goal is not to create a life where we never use technology. The goal is to develop enough awareness and nervous-system capacity that technology remains something we can choose, rather than something we automatically reach for whenever we experience discomfort, boredom, stress, loneliness, or difficult emotions.
Erin Awes, MSW, SWLC, LAC
References
American Psychological Association. (2023). Health advisory on social media use in adolescence.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2024). Social Media and Adolescent Health.
Volkow, N. D., Koob, G. F., & McLellan, A. T. (2016). Neurobiological advances from the brain disease model of addiction. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(4), 363–371.
Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction-error signaling: A two-component response. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17, 183–195.
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.
Labor, N. The Addictoholic Reconstructing.
LePera, N. (2021). How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self. Harper Wave.