How to easily quit your smartphone addiction, guided by science

Two girls lying on a bed using smartphones — Photo: YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV / Shutterstock

One man in a new documentary walked away from his smartphone for fifteen straight years, and he is not alone in proving the habit can be broken.

Quick Take

A DW News documentary, released October 11, 2026, profiles a man named Benugal who lived without a smartphone for fifteen years.
The film says people who cut back on phone use showed better focus, better well-being, and spent more time outdoors and with others.
Separate scientific studies back up parts of that claim, showing real gains from short phone breaks and blocked mobile internet.
Other research shows the benefits depend heavily on how the break is done, not just that a break happens.

A Fifteen-Year Experiment in Living Unplugged

The DW News documentary “Can We Live Without Smartphones?” opens with a simple but jarring fact. A man named Benugal went fifteen years without carrying a smartphone at all. That is not a weekend detox or a New Year’s resolution. It is a decade and a half of banking, communicating, and navigating daily life without the device most adults now treat as a body part.

His story sits inside a bigger question the film asks. We lean on smartphones for nearly everything, from paying bills to keeping up with family, yet plenty of people say they wish they spent less time staring at the screen. The documentary digs into why putting the phone down feels so hard, and what both users and app companies could do differently.

The film reports that people who took part in reduced-phone activities showed real gains. They saw improvements in well-being and concentration, and they spent more time outdoors, exercising, and socializing face to face. That matches a pattern researchers have been documenting for years, well before this documentary aired.

What the Research Actually Shows About Cutting Back

A study of 619 adults split people into three groups. One group put the smartphone away completely for a week. Another cut daily use by one hour. A third group changed nothing. Both groups that reduced use saw lifestyle and well-being improve, and some of those gains were still there four months later. That is a meaningful signal that breaking the habit sticks for some people.

Another study took a narrower approach. Researchers blocked mobile internet access on phones for two weeks but let people keep making calls and sending texts. The result was better sustained attention, better mental health, and higher subjective well-being. That suggests it may not be the phone itself causing harm. It may be the endless scroll of the internet living inside it.

A fourteen-day social media abstinence study found something similar. Screen time dropped, and people reported improvements tied to body image over time. These are controlled experiments, not anecdotes, and they point to real, measurable effects from stepping back.

Not Every Break Produces the Same Result

Other studies complicate the picture. A seven-day trial that cut social media use by fifty percent found no real improvement in attention or emotional well-being compared to a much smaller ten percent cut. That is an important detail. It means the type of restriction matters. Cutting an hour, blocking the internet entirely, or quitting social apps cold turkey do not all produce the same outcome.

Workplace behavior tells a related story. Research on smartphone bans at work found that even soft restrictions on personal phone use improved performance, largely by shifting what coworkers considered normal behavior. Separately, surveys show about one in four people in Germany say they would feel “lost” without their smartphone, underscoring just how deeply the device is woven into daily identity.

Taken together, the documentary and the broader research tell a consistent story. People genuinely can live with far less smartphone use, and in some cases none at all, as Benugal’s fifteen years demonstrate. The science shows real benefits from stepping back, but the method matters. A full week of abstinence works. A half measure sometimes does not. For readers weighing their own relationship with the device, that distinction may be the most useful takeaway of all.