There is a particular kind of fatigue we experience now that did not exist in the late 1990s.
It comes from too much input.
Too many headlines.
Too many alerts.
Too many moments where the nervous system is asked to care, react, and decide.
And for many younger adults, this is no longer occasional.
It is constant.
What Is the Impact?
The data supports what many PMHNP’s are seeing clinically.
Two signals are difficult to ignore:
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that anxiety disorders remain the most common mental illness in the United States, with increasing prevalence among younger adults over the past decade.
The American Psychological Association, in its Stress in America reports, consistently finds that Gen Z adults report the highest levels of stress and anxiety, with many rating their mental health as fair or poor.
Now consider this alongside the explosion of mental health platforms, apps, and services over the same time period.
The Device in the Room
U.S. adults spend over 4.5 hours per day on their phones, with younger adults often exceeding this.
Gen Z averages 6 to 8 hours of daily screen time across devices.
The average person checks their phone up to 140 times per day.
Social media platforms are engineered around variable reward, the same reinforcement pattern seen in gambling systems.
This is conditioning.
How many times have you deleted an app, only to reinstall it a week later?
Each scroll becomes a micro-orientation response.
Each notification, a small spike of salience.
Over time, the brain learns:
Stay alert.
Something important might happen next.
The Nervous System Cost
From a PMHNP lens, this begins to resemble chronic amygdala activation.
Not from one major threat.
But from thousands of micro threats.
Information that signals:
urgency
comparison
uncertainty
social evaluation
The system does not fully distinguish between real danger and perceived relevance.
It cannot.
So, it prepares.
Again and again.
This is how a baseline emerges that feels like:
Something is off.
Something needs attention.
Something bad is about to happen.
Even when nothing is.
In a sense, we begin to retrain our “gut instinct.”
The Analog Solution
The intervention is not to eliminate technology.
We rely on it for work and daily life.
But we do need to reintroduce contrast.
We need moments where nothing is happening.
No feed.
No input.
No performance.
Just presence.
Here is a cleaner way to think about this:
☕️ Moderate shifts (accessible, realistic):
Walking with simple audio such as an iPod, radio, or downloaded playlist
Sitting without a second screen while eating or resting
Using single task activities like reading a physical book or magazine
☕️☕️ Challenging shifts (higher impact):
Walking without any headphones
Reading content that does not update or scroll
Leaving your phone in another room for defined periods
Environmental resets:
Buy a cheap FM radio. The slight friction reduces binge behavior
Watch live TV with commercials. Notice how time expands?
This is not a detox, but more like a recalibration.
Where ACT Fits
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy does not ask you to eliminate thoughts or feelings.
It asks a different question:
Is this helping you move toward the life you want?
The always-on loop rarely passes that test.
ACT offers small, precise moves:
noticing the urge to check
identifying the trigger (what happened right before the scroll began)
naming the experience (“my mind is seeking stimulation again”)
choosing, intentionally, what to do next
This is flexible awareness.
Make room, then choose.
A Different Kind of Attention
We often label the problem as a “anxiety”.
Lately, it becomes a catch all term for discomfort, boredom, and internal friction.
But now the problem is uninterrupted stimulation.
The solution is not silence.
It is selective attention.
Have you explored this with your patients?
Have you asked permission to review their screen time data?
Are they living in alignment with their values, or reacting to the feed?
Are they even aware of the mousetrap?
Have your explored “towards moves” in relation to their values?
One moment at a time.
Next week, we will explore a loaded question I was asked last week:
Which psychotherapy is best?