"Digital detox" sounds like a strict programme with rules and a pass mark. It is not. There is no governing body, no standard length and no checklist.
What it means in practice is simple: you choose to step away from some screens for a set period, on purpose, so you can see what your attention does without them.
What is a digital detox?
A deliberate break from digital devices or apps, with a start and an end.
The deliberate part matters. Losing your phone for an afternoon or being stuck without signal is not a detox, because you did not choose it. A detox is a decision, made ahead of time, about what you will not pick up and for how long.
The time-limited part matters too. It is a trial, not a life sentence. A useful question to bring to one: how much of my phone use is want, and how much is habit?
What does a digital detox include?
Whatever you decide it includes. In practice, people draw the line in one of three places:
- The feed only. Social media, short-form video and the apps you open without meaning to. Everything else on the phone stays.
- The phone, mostly. Internet and apps off, but calls and texts still work, so you stay reachable.
- All screens. Phone, laptop, TV and games, usually for a short stretch such as a day or a weekend.
For most people the first or second is the more realistic and more useful. A full blackout is harder to sustain, and it can cut things you need for work or for contacting people you care about.
A sensible test for what to include is this: what do you reach for without deciding to? That is the part worth removing.
Source: one randomised trial sits in the middle option. In a randomised trial of 467 participants, Castelo and colleagues blocked mobile internet on smartphones for two weeks while calls and texts still worked. The trial reported improvements in sustained attention, mental health and subjective well-being, and increased nightly sleep was one of the mechanisms. Castelo et al., PNAS Nexus, 2025.
Does a digital detox include TV?
It can, but it does not have to, and it helps to ask what the TV is doing for you.
Watching a film with someone, or a show you chose and will finish, is a different act from half-watching while scrolling. Plenty of people count the second as the problem and the first as fine.
If your goal is to quiet the constant, self-directed checking, TV is usually not the main target. If your goal is a full break from screens, or you notice TV turns into background scrolling, include it. Neither choice is wrong. Pick the one that matches what you are trying to change.
One thing worth knowing: one observational study of real-life smartphone use found that most smartphone interactions, about 89%, were started by the user rather than prompted by a notification. The pull tends to come from us reaching, which is why the habit of reaching is the thing to look at, rather than the particular device.
Source: Heitmayer & Lahlou, Computers in Human Behavior, 2021.
What is a digital detox weekend?
A short, contained version: roughly a Friday evening to a Sunday evening with your chosen screens off.
A weekend is popular because it is long enough to feel different and short enough to be doable. It also avoids the work week, when you may need your devices.
It is worth knowing what the research does and does not say about a stretch this short. One small brain-imaging study of 25 young adults put people through 72 hours of smartphone restriction and found that their brain responses to pictures of phones changed in reward and craving regions. That is a small study and a laboratory measure, so it does not tell us what a weekend will do for any particular person.
Source: Schmitgen et al., Computers in Human Behavior, 2025.
For a weekend that holds up, decide the rules before it starts. Say what is off and what is allowed, such as maps or calls. Put the phone in another room where you can, and have a few offline things lined up, because the gap will arrive and a blank afternoon is a bad moment to improvise.
What is a digital detox challenge?
A structured, usually public version: a set number of days, often 7, 14 or 30, with a rule to follow and sometimes a group to do it with.
The structure is the point. A date range and a clear rule make it easier to start and easier to say you are finished. Group versions add a bit of accountability.
The two weeks in the Castelo trial is one length with a randomised trial behind it. That does not mean a shorter challenge is pointless; it is simply the length that trial used.
If you want a number to aim for, two weeks is a reasonable one. If that sounds like too much, a weekend is a fine start.
What does a digital detox look like day to day?
Less dramatic than the name suggests.
In the first hours, expect some restlessness: reaching for a phone that is not there, a faint sense of missing something. Expect that to pass, and expect some ordinary things to feel like effort for a while before it eases. That is observation, not a research finding, and it varies from person to person.
In practice, a detox day often looks like this:
- The phone stays out of the bedroom, so the day starts without it.
- Apps or internet are blocked in your phone's settings, rather than relying on willpower.
- Gaps in the day, queues, breaks and commutes, are left empty or filled with something physical.
- Evenings are quieter, which many people find welcome. On sleep, a large review of 21 cohort studies covering 548,338 people found that each extra hour of daily screen time was associated with a later bedtime and a little less sleep, though association is not proof of cause, and it looked at daily screen time rather than detoxes.
Source: He et al., Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2025.
You do not need an app for any of this. Your phone's own settings can block apps. If you want a voice in the gap while you are getting used to it, Boredom has a short guided reset for exactly those minutes, but the detox itself works without it.
The short version
A digital detox is a chosen break from the screens that pull at you, for a set time. What it includes is up to you: the feed, the phone, or everything.
If you are unsure where to draw the line, start with the thing you reach for without thinking, and keep calls and texts on. Run it for a weekend or, if you can, two weeks. You are not trying to pass a test. You are finding out what your attention does when the reach has nowhere to go.