The average British adult spends over four hours a day on their phone, a figure that has risen consistently since smartphones became ubiquitous in the early 2010s. Studies consistently show that high screen time, particularly passive consumption of social media, correlates with increased anxiety, disrupted sleep, reduced attention span, and a persistent low-level sense of dissatisfaction that researchers describe as the comparison effect. Meanwhile, a separate body of research is quietly accumulating evidence that making things with your hands does almost the opposite. Here's what it shows, and why the contrast matters.
What happens in the brain when you scroll
Social media and news feeds are designed to maximise engagement, which in practice means they're designed to trigger just enough emotional response to keep you scrolling without providing enough resolution to let you stop. The outrage, the mild envy, the vague anxiety, the occasional dopamine hit of something amusing: these cycle fast enough to hold attention without satisfying it. The result, experienced by most people who have spent an extended session on their phone, is a state of stimulation without satisfaction, tiredness without rest.
Neurologically, this pattern activates the default mode network, the part of the brain associated with self-referential thinking, rumination, and the rehearsal of social anxieties. This is the same network that's active when you're lying awake worrying. Sustained activation of this network, which passive screen consumption consistently produces, is associated with increased anxiety and reduced wellbeing across multiple peer-reviewed studies.
What happens in the brain when you make something
Making things with your hands produces a markedly different neurological state. The focused attention required by a physical task, fitting pieces together, sanding a surface, carving a line, suppresses the default mode network and activates the task-positive network instead. This is the same shift that occurs during meditation, but it happens more reliably for people who find formal meditation difficult, because the physical task provides an external anchor for attention that breath does not.
Research published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy found that craft activities, including knitting, woodworking, and ceramics, were associated with significant reductions in anxiety and improvements in mood across a wide sample of practitioners. A 2016 study in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people who engaged in creative activities reported higher levels of flourishing and positive affect the following day. The mechanism proposed in both cases is similar: focused making work produces a state of flow, the experience of absorbed attention described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is associated with some of the highest reported wellbeing scores in psychological research.
The specific advantage of making something physical
The research on creative activities is not limited to physical making. Writing, music, and other creative practices show similar benefits. But physical making has a specific advantage: the finished object. Unlike a digital experience that leaves no trace, a made object persists after the activity ends as a visible record of the effort invested. This has a disproportionate effect on mood and self-efficacy. Seeing a completed thing you made yourself, however modest, provides a sense of competence and agency that accumulates over time.
This is sometimes called the IKEA effect, after research showing that people value objects more highly when they've participated in making them, even when the participation is minimal. The effect is amplified when the making requires genuine skill and sustained attention, as flatpack model kits and other craft activities do.
Why the comparison matters practically
The comparison between screens and making is not a moral argument against technology. Smartphones and the internet have produced enormous benefits. But the specific pattern of passive social media consumption is demonstrably bad for wellbeing in ways that are well-evidenced and increasingly widely acknowledged. The question is what to do about it, and the answer that research consistently supports is not willpower-based restriction but replacement. Replacing screen time with an absorbing physical activity works better than simply trying to scroll less.
A flatpack wooden model kit is one of the most accessible replacements available. The Curious Rabbit range, laser-cut in Wales, covers enough subjects from garden sheds and railway signal boxes to Brownie Cameras and beach huts, that there's almost certainly something in it that connects to an existing interest. No specialist knowledge required, no equipment needed beyond what comes in the box, and the finished piece gives you something to put on a shelf at the end of an evening that the phone never does. Browse the full range at curiousrabbit.com.
Curious Rabbit makes laser-cut wooden gifts and model kits, designed and made in Wales.
