Guest Post by Kenneth W. Jacobs, Salem State University

After an unusually busy day, I found myself fighting off sleep.

Midnight approached as I lay seated and “scrolling.”

You see, I far exceeded my usual day’s work: classes taught, students advised, and an impromptu meeting concluded just in time for Gōjū-Ryū Karate with the Dean (no joke).

So, there I was, fighting off sleep for a scroll down my “for you” page. I’ll get to sleep by 1:00 AM, but an hour’s worth of scrolling gained is an hour’s worth of sleep lost. That’s the trade-off I’ll make to reach my usual time spent scrolling.

This is my bedtime experience, and I assume it is common because more than half of U.S. adults reportedly spend at least 5 hours a day on screen. Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults also report that their phone has a negative impact on their sleep. Sleepless and scrolling, we just can’t seem to put our ubiquitous (Ubik) devices down. The question for me, and others like me, is why?

Late Night Behavior Regulation

The answer to why I can’t seem to put down my phone is behavior regulation.

Behavior regulation is a well-studied process that involves increasing and/or decreasing your behavior in the face of a challenge. The challenge is when work encroaches on a leisure-time activity like scrolling. In my case, work increased with an impromptu meeting, which resulted in me decreasing my sleep to scroll.

This is behavior regulation, an increase and/or decrease in behavior when our usual course of activity is disrupted by a challenge.

Let’s put it this way:

1. I’m a daily scroller (1h 30m a day on average, not bad).
2. I’ll make an effort to preserve my daily scroll.
3. If my daily scroll is challenged, then I’ll lose sleep to preserve it.

There must be something wrong with me, right?

Wrong.

You might think there’s something wrong with me, but this “wrongdoing” gets things right. My fight against sleep is regulation, simple as that. And as it turns out, all living organisms regulate. From our physiology to our behavior, and for good and for bad, we all regulate. This regulation is what preserves our flesh and blood and, you better believe it, our screen time activity!

In his book titled “What is health?”, Peter Sterling tells the science-backed story of how there is nothing wrong with our regulatory behaviors. Instead, there’s something wrong with our environments. Regulation is a health preserving behavior, but in environments full of junk foods and sports betting, our regulatory systems run amok. In the case of my midnight scroll, there’s something seriously wrong with my phone. What’s wrong is that it affords me an “infinite scroll”, among other things.

With the assurance that there’s nothing wrong with me, or with you, we can continue to suss out the cause of our regulatory behaviors. We know that an environmental challenge can shift how we regulate. Now, we need to figure out why. Why do we regulate our behavior in the face of challenge?  

Behavioral Equilibrium Instigates Regulation

What you might call a habit is what I call behavioral equilibrium.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve placed a lot of emphasis on the word usual. What you usually do throughout the course of your day, without interruption, is your behavioral equilibrium. Equilibrium is that perfect balance between work and play; it’s your bliss point.

For me, a day without scrolling is highly unusual. As mentioned, I have a 1h 30m daily average screen time on my phone. This is my screen time behavioral equilibrium. Take that screen time away from me and you will have disrupted my “work-life balance.” This disruption is what we call disequilibrium. Disequilibrium is that challenge we’ve already talked about. We will regulate to reduce a condition of disequilibrium. Specifically, we reduce disequilibrium to re-approach our behavioral equilibrium.

At this point, you’re getting a real sense of Behavior Regulation Theory (BRT), so let’s summarize it:

1. We have a behavioral equilibrium.
2. We’ll make an effort to preserve our behavioral equilibrium.
3. If in disequilibrium, then we’ll regulate to reduce it.

That last line, #3, brings us back to equilibrium. Overall, this means that we regulate because we have a behavioral equilibrium. If we didn’t have a behavioral equilibrium, then we presumably wouldn’t make an effort to reduce disequilibrium. Without a behavioral equilibrium, there would be no such thing as “overwork.”  There’d be no such thing as “too much” or “too little” rest and relaxation. We’d flow like water, taking whichever shape lie on the path before us, without preference, intention, or purpose.

A challenge to your behavioral equilibrium, then, will instigate a change in your behavior.

Behavior Regulation & Social Media Use

Up until now, I’ve focused largely on screen time. This is for good reason. Recent research out of my Interbehavioral Regulation Lab at Salem State has demonstrated at least three things, which we can juxtapose with our earlier statements about regulation:

These three findings empirically validate a BRT approach to social media use. But like B.F. Skinner, who wasn’t interested in rats and levers for their own sake, I’m not interested in TikTok videos and advertisements. 

As a behavior analyst, I’m interested in the process of regulation beyond the screen. I’m interested in behavior regulation as an evolved, lawful process that cuts across species and behaviors. To approach that interest, we need more data to verify, falsify, and elaborate our theory of behavior regulation. To that end, I’m interested and hopeful.

Behavior Regulation Beyond the Screen

As of this writing, there’s been a renewed interest in a BRT-approach to socially significant problems. From disruptive motor stereotypy to obsessive compulsive disorder, BRT-informed interventions have led to meaningful outcomes for neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals.

Additionally, the math models that represent the behavior regulation process—whether in a home, school, hospital, or outpatient setting—accurately predict the outcomes of interventions. BRT models have been shown to precisely predict how much time someone will spend reading, writing, or playing. With a BRT model that predicts the effects of interventions, behavioral practitioners and therapists can more effectively tailor their interventions to meet the individual needs of clients.  

Beyond the screen, there are BRT ends-in-view:

1. To methodologically interrogate the assumption of behavioral equilibrium.
2. To extract from that interrogative method a technology of behavior change.
3. To apply that technology to the socially important problems of our day.

I can’t help but think in terms of behavior regulation. What’s more, I believe that BRT can be an effective guide for future research. There are outstanding questions about behavior regulation that remain unanswered.

For instance, when a problem behavior is decreased in one setting, does an individual re-approach their equilibrium for that behavior in another setting? Or do our behavioral interventions establish a new equilibrium altogether?

Further, what effect does our linguistic behavior have on our regulatory behavior? Does a commitment to “quitting cold turkey” facilitate a deviation from behavioral equilibrium? Do the words “dry January” or “couch to 5k” make a regulatory difference?

I suspect that language does make a difference, and that we can establish a new equilibrium, but more work and less scrolling needs to be done. Say it with me, “more work, less scrolling.”