You’ve probably experienced a lingering feeling that tweeting in traffic and checking your emails while grocery shopping is maybe not so great for your mental health. Or maybe you jump on Instagram and three hours later wonder why it feels like a tiny piece of your soul has gone missing. Now, the American Psychological Association wants to confirm that, yes, obsessively checking your devices is likely making you feel insane.
On February 23, the APA released the second part of its annual “Stress in America” study, revealing how social media use has exploded in the past ten years, breeding a new generation of stressed out “constant checkers.” As of 2015, 90 percent of young adults in the 18 to 29 age range use social media—up from just 12 percent of the same demographic in 2005.
Overall, 43 percent of Americans report being unable to peel themselves away from their phones and suffering as a result. On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being no stress and 10 being a great deal of stress), constant checkers register at an average of 5.3. Meanwhile, those who check their phones at a more reasonable pace reported an average stress level of 4.4. Those who check their work emails during their days off register at an average of 6.0.
No matter how often you check your work emails or obsess over your social media following, we could probably all benefit from some digital downtime. Here are a few steps you can take to clear your mind.
First, admit you have a problem
Like any addiction, whether it revolves around chardonnay or “likes,” you have to recognize you have a problem before you can solve it. Join the 65 percent of American respondents who agree that unplugging every now and then is a good idea. Just don’t be like the 79 percent of respondents who never actually get around to doing a digital detox.
Plan, plan, plan
If you want your digital detox to work, you need to have a plan in place and stick to it. Decide when you want to start your break and which devices you want to take a break from. Are you looking to cleanse for a solid week or just every Sunday? Are you trying to break free from social media or ditch your phone altogether? Depending on your objective, it might be as easy as deleting certain apps or it might a little more complicated, like scheduling transportation ahead of time. And if you communicate with your family on Facebook all the time, you might want to give them a heads up before you fall off the face of the earth.
Have fun (no, seriously)
It’ll be a little shocking to realize how much free time you suddenly have when you’re not keeping up with every dog meme known to man. Have some fun, technology-free plans in place so you’re not tempted to relapse before you’ve finished your cleanse. Take your fur-child on a hike and give her your full attention. Go inside that really cool thrift store you’ve been walking straight past for the last year and a half. Read a book. Write a book. Do nothing at all. Whatever you do, your mind will thank you for it.
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
Gif of Robin Williams via 
A woman conducts a online color testCanva
A selection of color swatchesCanva
A young boy takes a color examCanva 
Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.