Your smartphone making you older? Alarming link between screen addiction and brain ageing
- Baby Chakrapani P S
- TNN Apr 09, 2026, 13:32 IST IST
Indians collectively spent 1.1 trillion hours staring at their smartphones in 2024 — an average of five hours a day per person, according to a new EY report. Nearly 70% of that time was devoted to social media, gaming, and short-form video.
However, a far quieter crisis is unfolding — a growing body of evidence points to a hidden biological cascade: Excessive screen time disrupts sleep, which ravages the gut microbiome, fuels neuroinflammation, and accelerates brain ageing in ways science is only beginning to measure.
However, a far quieter crisis is unfolding — a growing body of evidence points to a hidden biological cascade: Excessive screen time disrupts sleep, which ravages the gut microbiome, fuels neuroinflammation, and accelerates brain ageing in ways science is only beginning to measure.
