Przewinięci/ Scrolled down
“Scrolled down. Smartphone in Polish Everyday Life” is a book about people who live with a phone in their hand.
About those who take their smartphones into the bathroom, check them on the street, during meals, and even while talking to someone.
About those who turn to their phones for rest, escape, inspiration and sometimes simply to find someone to connect with.
.
Are you ready to see
your day and
your smartphone
from a different perspective?
Research Project
Based on the results of the international #HumanePhone project, which examines smartphone habits across different countries, cultures, and generations, this book describes how our reliance on smartphones affects our health, concentration, and relationships, fundamentally altering the way we navigate a world where these devices have evolved from mere gadgets to indispensable companions in our everyday lives.
Smartphone habits in Poland
Did you know that nine out of ten Poles fall asleep with their phone? One in two looks at their device while cooking and eating, and one in four even takes it into the bathtub. The smartphone is no longer just a tool; it has become our daily habit.
“Scrolled down..” is a book about people who unconsciously reach for their phones from morning to night—at breakfast, at work, during meetings, and even while brushing their teeth.
AUTHORS
Magdalena Hodalska
- Position: Jagiellonian University Professor at the Institute of Journalism, Media and Social Communication.
- Expertise: With over 100 scientific publications to her name, Magdalena is a recognized scholar in media studies, focusing on the social and cultural impacts of media. She has edited monographs in both Polish and English, with works published by prestigious publishers like Brill and Interdisciplinary Press Oxford. As the editor-in-chief of the journal “Zeszyty Prasoznawcze,” she plays an important role in shaping academic discourse in her field. She led international projects such as Fears and Anxieties in the 21st Century (2013-2016, Oxford) and Journalism of Trauma (UJ, Krakow, 2017).
- Research Interests: digital wellbeing, media narratives, media coverage, trauma journalism, social and cultural impact of media. Her notable publications include War Correspondent (2006), Death of the Pope, the Birth of a Myth (2010), Trauma of Journalists. Journalism of Trauma (2017), Media Coverage of Natural Disasters (2018). Additionally, she has co-authored works analyzing the role of media during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting its impact on social anxiety and perceptions of threat.
- European Commission expert since 2022
- Magdalena is passionate about dogs and food art.
Łukasz Buksa
- Position: Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow
- Expertise: An accomplished author of a book on smartphone addiction, Łukasz delves into the psychological and spiritual aspects of smartphone use. His research addresses critical issues surrounding digital behaviors and their effects on human interactions.
- Research Interests: Smartphone addiction, digital religion and the psychological impact of smartphone use on society
- Outside of academia, Łukasz is a musician and vocalist and a snowboard instructor.
This book offers a unique perspective. It does not accuse but invites you to understand. It does not criticize but opens your eyes to the impact of technology on our lives. It is the first step towards conscious use of technology, encouraging reflection rather than rejection.
You don’t have to put your phone down to read this book. But perhaps after reading it, you'll see your smartphone in a new way.
Are you ready to see your smartphone and your everyday life from a different perspective?
Reviews in Academic Journals
"This is one of the first books on the publishing market that documents in such detail and from multiple perspectives the impact of smartphones on the everyday lives of the Polish population. (…) The book provides unique data and cultural contexts related to the digitization of daily life. The authors skillfully blend scientific narrative with accessible language, creating an exceptional example of research engagement and analytical integrity. Thanks to its clear language and rich information, this book serves as a universal compendium of knowledge aimed at practically every smartphone user”
dr hab. Małgorzata Łosiewicz, prof. UG, University of Gdańsk
With great curiosity and immense pleasure, I read the book by Magdalena Hodalska and Łukasz Buksa titled “Przewinięci. Smartfon w polskiej codzienności. Przeglądanie telefonu w świetle badań empirycznych” (Scrolled Down: The Smartphone in Polish Daily Life. Phone Browsing in Light of Empirical Research). I must admit that I couldn’t put it down, as it speaks to each of us and our daily lives with smart devices. It illustrates the lives of people characterized by, among other things: media multitasking, various types of scrolling, multiscreening, and phubbing.
The authors demonstrate, based on their own research findings and those of researchers from various specialties, including physiotherapists, orthopedic surgeons, dentists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, microbiologists, lawyers, psychotherapists, sociologists, and media scholars, how smartphones affect our physical and mental health as well as our interpersonal relationships. They analyze how smart phones influence our brains.
Magdalena Hodalska and Łukasz Buksa, while describing the daily habits of respondents, avoid blaming the reader. Instead, whenever possible, they highlight the positive aspects of smartphone use. They focus on education, explaining how apps on smart devices activate the reward system in the brain, making browsing content recommended by algorithms easier and more addictive. Understanding the mechanisms of digital tools and being aware of the extent to which problems related to smartphone use affect people from different generations helps eliminate feelings of “not fitting in” and the belief that we cannot cope with stimuli. They also emphasize the possibilities of time management and integrating the phone into our daily activities in a way that makes moments spent browsing on a smartphone moments of rest—meaningful rather than harmful to our relationships, health, or safety.
While reading the book, I reflected on the study results in relation to my own smartphone and device usage habits. Therefore, I recommend this book to everyone, as it can serve as a basis for recognizing one’s own smartphone habits. Moreover, reflecting on and taking a deeper look at these habits can serve as the initial step toward changing how we use smart devices. (…) the #HumanePhone project should serve as a foundation for developing preventive programs implemented in schools, particularly in the subjects of safety education and/or health education. I sincerely encourage everyone to pick up this book and take the time to reflect on its content.
Dr hab. Olga Dąbrowska- Cendrowska, prof. UJK,
Jan Kochanowski University of Kielce
There is no doubt that the scope and scholarly rigour of the authors’ research are also reflected in the bibliography, which runs to more than fifty pages and includes references to both Polish and international scholarship. This deserves to be highlighted and commended. The bibliography reflects an interdisciplinary perspective—drawing on media studies, psychology, cultural studies and sociology, as well as medicine, since one notable physical consequence of smartphone overuse is what is known as “text neck.” […]
A significant strength of the authors’ discussion is the way it combines academic rigour with accessible language. This makes the book useful not only to researchers and experts in a range of fields and to students, but also to a broad readership. Written in an accessible, popular-science style, it guides readers through the topics while retaining its scholarly value and remaining clear and easy to understand.
Dr Olimpia Górska, Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II
Quote from a review: Górska, O. (2025). Phono sapiens. Jak przestaliśmy umieć żyć bez smartfona,
Kultura I Społeczeństwo, 69(3), 232–235. https://doi.org/10.35757/KiS.2025.69.3.15
The Authors give voice to physiotherapists and doctors, including surgeons, orthopaedists, dentists, and ophthalmologists, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, microbiologists, lawyers, psychotherapists, and sociologists. They adopt an interdisciplinary perspective to identify and better understand the different dimensions of our interactions with the modern-day phone. They invite us into the garden of communication and media studies, while also venturing into other scholarly green spaces that enrich our understanding of phenomena related to our digital everyday lives, interpersonal communication, and mobile technology. (…)
Reflecting on when the phone brings people together and when it drives them apart, the authors focus on the central question guiding their inquiry. They seek to determine “how the phone might become human again”—both for its users and for the people around them.
Dr hab. Marcin Zaborski, prof. Uniwersytetu SWPS
Quote from a review: Zaborski, Marcin (2025). Przewinięci. Smartfon w polskiej codzienności. Przeglądanie telefonu w świetle badań empirycznych. Studia Medioznawcze 2025, tom 26, nr 3 (102), s. 278–281, https://studiamedioznawcze.eu/index.php/studiamedioznawcze/article/view/864
This book is not a fatalistic lament of the kind sometimes found in publications on smartphones. Rather, with a spirit of curiosity, it seeks to reach the most human aspects of our digital habits, following people into such intimate places as the kitchen or the bathroom. One gets the impression that the authors are guided by Terence’s maxim, “Nothing human is alien to me,” which fits perfectly with the name of the project, #HumanePhone, putting the human being before the phone. This humanist spirit, evident from the book’s very first words (“This is not a book about smartphones. It is a book about people who use smartphones from dawn till dusk”), may be just as significant a strength of Przewinięci/ Scrolled down, as its undeniable scholarly originality.
Mateusz Pasek
Quote from a review:
Pasek, Mateusz. 2026. „To Nie Jest książka O smartfonach”: Recenzja książki Magdaleny Hodalskiej I Łukasza Buksy Pt. Przewinięci. Smartfon W Polskiej codzienności. „Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Librorum” 1 (42): 117-21. https://doi.org/10.18778/0860-7435.42.07.
This book is a topical read that makes a significant contribution to media and communication studies. It systematizes knowledge about smartphone habits. (…) Another valuable observation regarding smartphone usage patterns is that users are often “physically present” but “emotionally distant.” Building on this, Hodalska and Buksa observe that prioritizing online availability further diminishes the quality of offline interactions. Moreover, it is not only active phone use but even its mere presence that reduces conversational engagement. It contributes to weakened interpersonal skills, illusory interactions, and a poorer perception of conversational partners. These issues culminate in what Chapter 10 describes as “phubbing,” the act of ignoring interlocutors to look at a screen. (…) The authors also provide statistics on smartphone use in the bedroom, kitchen, bath room, and at the gym. In Chapters 11–15, they discuss phenomena related to phone use before bedtime, at mealtimes (smartphones as the new “cookbooks” and “companions” at the table), while brushing teeth, bathing, toilet scrolling, and exercising (“scrolling as a new cardio”). The ubiquity of phone use seems to be connected to multitasking, defined as using more than one medium simultaneously (multiscreening), or combining smart phone use with other activities.
Małgorzata Durmaj
Quote from a review:
Durmaj, Małgorzata. "Book Review: Scrolled down. The smartphone in Polish everyday life by Magdalena Hodalska & Łukasz Buksa." Mobile media and Communication, 2026, no 1, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/20501579261448443
The book is structured thematically around specific everyday activities and their connections with the smartphone. It covers areas such as physical health (“text neck,” tired eyes); neurology and concentration (“popcorn brain,” multitasking); social functioning (family relationships, phubbing, FOMO); work and education; sleep; eating; physical activity; and risky behaviours, such as scrolling while crossing the street or driving. Each topic is situated within the international scholarly literature and illustrated with findings from empirical research. (…)
The authors do not demonise technology but instead reveal its dual nature. *Przewinięci* is a book about people who have woven scrolling through content on their phones into the rhythm of everyday life. The material is logically organised around the daily cycle and the activities of a typical smartphone user—from the morning, when they first reach for their phone, through work, study, entertainment, and relationships, to the evening, when they fall asleep with their phone. (…)
A particular strength of the book is its scholarly style, which leans towards accessible, popular-science writing. This makes the work engaging without compromising its conceptual precision, academic credibility, or substantive rigour. Frequent references to everyday life, metaphors, humorous observations, and allusions to popular culture make the book accessible and interesting to a wide readership.
Dr Jarosław Kinal, Uniwersytet Rzeszowski
Quote from a review: Kinal, Jarosław (2025). Przewinięci w cyfrowej rzeczywistości. O codziennych praktykach smartfonowych Polaków. Kultura Media Teologia, 63(3), 218-222, https://czasopisma.uksw.edu.pl/kmt/article/view/16193
This Books engages readers and encourages reflection without making them feel guilty or ashamed. The authors have ensured that it rests on a sound theoretical foundation and offers an in-depth account of the study’s findings, while also including practical advice on how to use mobile phones in ways that bring users greater benefit.
mgr Aleksandra Skrzypiec
Quote from a review:
Skrzypiec, Aleksandra (2026) Recenzja książki: Magdalena Hodalska, Łukasz Buksa, Przewinięci. Smartfon w polskiej codzienności. Naukowy Przegląd Dziennikarski, 2026, nr 1, s. 193-199, http://naukowy-przeglad-dziennikarski.org/sites/default/files/08_Skrzypiec_NPD2026_01%202026.pdf
The chapter headings and narrative style are modern and well suited to today’s “scrolled” reader—a person whose everyday life unfolds in a world dominated by digital technologies. This does not mean, however, that the language of the publication is colloquial. On the contrary, the authors offer a fresh take on scholarly writing: it retains the conventions of academic prose while reflecting an awareness of contemporary communication practices and modern writing styles. The book is about smartphone users and, at the same time, written for them, taking their media and language literacy into account. Together, these qualities make the publication both appealing and accessible.
dr hab. Małgorzata Laskowska, prof. UKSW
Quote from a review: Laskowska, M. (2025), Smartfon w codziennym życiu, Zeszyty Prasoznawcze, 2025, t. 68, nr 2 (262), s. 185–191. https://doi.org/10.4467/22996362PZ.25.025.21557
We’re proud and delighted to share readers’ feedback on our book
It is a mirror of our times. This book shows how the smartphone has become an inseparable part of our daily routines: accompanying us in the kitchen and the bathroom, and even keeping us company in our loneliness. The authors, who conduct an international study of people’s smartphone habits, do more than diagnose “smartphone-related problems”—they also write about practical tools to help us regain control of lives dominated by technology.
It’s a book that offers a fresh perspective on what it means to be human. I read each chapter with a sense of surprise, realizing just how attached we’ve become to this device, which accompanies us in almost every situation. As the book reveals, its presence affects our relationships with other people as well as our physical and mental health.
As I learned about the habits of people who are “scrolled away” or "scrolled down", using their smartphones in the kitchen, in the bathroom, or while driving. And I found myself thinking, “I do that too!” And judging by the data cited in the book’s chapters, I’m far from alone.
So many studies cited and discussed—it’s a real treat!
You won’t skim through this book! At least, not by turning the pages forward. If anything, you’ll find yourself returning to passages that surprise or frighten you, make you laugh, or give you food for thought. Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down is still a rare example of a book that combines outstanding scholarly quality with timely, rigorous research, presenting it in clear, accessible language for readers outside academia.*
If there were a required reading list for parents, Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down would have to be on it. It is the responsibility of us “older” generations to introduce young people to the digital world, showing them both its wonders and its dangers. We cannot do that without a basic understanding of the subject—and this book presents that knowledge methodically and compellingly, without preaching. A must-read!
Piotr
The book Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down made me more aware of my everyday phone-use habits. At the same time, it offers practical advice on how to navigate the digital world wisely. I believe everyone should pause from time to time and consider whether digital reality is taking up too much space that belongs to the real world. :)
Wojtek
This book doesn’t preach, but opens your eyes. As someone who values social connection, I feel uneasy seeing technology increasingly replace genuine relationships. This publication is more than a collection of research—it is a mirror held up to our everyday behavior. As I read, I recognized so many moments from daily life: times when a phone takes attention away from another person.
Ania
Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down is a book that introduced me to terms describing human attitudes and behaviors that I observe in the community every day. Before, I didn’t know how to name specific behaviors or understand the mechanisms behind them.
Arek
This is a book written absolutely for all of us! For you and me. Because we all use smartphones, even if it’s only right now, while reading this review. The authors show how smartphones permeate different areas of our lives and affect our health. (…) Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down encourages us to reflect on and assess what smartphones have really done to our minds, perception, and emotions, and how they have changed the way we function in a world where phones have become part of everyday life.
Although I thought this world wasn’t mine, because I do not post or share photos on social media, and “likes” don’t mean much to to me, but a little more reflection helped me realize just how many things I do unconsciously. So I drew my own conclusions and was inspired to introduce “phone-free hours” into my life. :) Thank you for this publication! It is incredibly valuable!
Paulina
I must admit, this book really shook me. As I read it, I realized just how caught up I am in the endless scroll and constant phone-checking. There were moments when I became aware of how much time and energy I spend on something that often adds nothing of value to my life. Emotionally, it was a bit like looking in a mirror. I saw myself there, but also many people around me. At times, I felt overwhelmed as I realized how much a smartphone can distract us from real relationships and moments that should matter.
At the same time, though, the book gave me hope and motivation. It isn’t just a critique—it also offers practical advice on how to make a change. After reading it, I felt that I could take action, that I have some control over how much and how I use my phone, so I don’t lose sight of what really matters.
Karol
Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down is a remarkable book that, in a style that is both accessible and profound, invites us to reflect on the pace of modern life and how much we need to pause. With empathy and sensitivity, the authors guide readers through feelings of disorientation, sensory overload, and the need to find our bearings in a world we are constantly “scrolling” through.
The metaphor of scrolling, so familiar to anyone who uses a smartphone every day, becomes a starting point for a broader reflection on how often we scroll not only through screens, but through our own lives: our relationships, emotions, and moments of silence.
The book encourages us to make the smartphone, a tool that so profoundly shapes our daily live: a space for thoughtful choice rather than mechanical habit. As the authors argue, using technology well does not mean giving it up, but engaging with it consciously—with moderation, intention, and mindfulness.
I am deeply grateful for this publication and for the important contribution it makes to the conversation about what it means to be human in a world immersed in screens.
This message has particular significance in the context of our lives. We can see how important it has become to develop digital skills that bring technology together with reflection on the human experience. Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down shows that balance between the real and virtual worlds is possible if we learn to use digital tools not to escape reality, but to understand it better and help shape it.
Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down inspired me to look at my own life, and at my phone screen, with greater mindfulness. It teaches us that sometimes it is worth “scrolling” not to see something new, but to return to what matters most. This is a call to pause. Not as an act of giving up, but as the beginning of conscious action, both in our personal lives and in our communities.
Przewinięci/ Scrolled Down is a book that reminds us that technology can support personal and social development if we know how to use it wisely. It is about finding a thoughtful balance: between the digital and real worlds, between action and reflection, between scrolling and simply being.
I am deeply grateful for this publication and for the important contribution it makes to the conversation about what it means to be human in a world immersed in screens. In a simple yet deeply moving way, it reminds us that modernity need not mean superficiality, and technology need not distance us from our values. For me, it is an inspiration to continue working toward a more conscious relationship with technology. The relationship that always puts people first.
Anna
A must-read for everyone! This scholarly book resonated with me on both an emotional and personal level. I’m the mother of teenagers, and I thought I was aware of many of these issues, but the book opened my eyes even wider and examined these topics in depth, leaving me in no doubt about how much we still don’t know.
Kasia
This book is a very moving and remarkably timely reflection on a contemporary way of life in which the boundary between the real and digital worlds has almost disappeared. It is not a story about technology being to blame, but about our dependence on stimulation and our need to stay constantly “connected.” This books invites us to regain our balance—to use mindfully a tool that can be both an ally and a quiet thief of our attention, time, and relationships.
Oksana