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Talking about phone habits

Episode 260703 / 03 Jul 2026

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Neil and Becca have a real conversation in easy English about phone habits – how we spend our time on our phones. Learn to talk about screen time, notifications and doomscrolling!

Vocabulary

screen time
time spent looking an an electronic screen, often your phone screen

doomscrolling
using your phone or smart device to look at one negative story after another for a long period of time, making yourself feel unhappy

notifications
messages that apps use to encourage you to check your phone

addiction
habit or activity that you cannot easily stop doing

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Transcript

Neil
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Neil.
 
Becca
And I'm Becca. You can find a video version of this podcast along with a transcript to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Neil
Hi Becca, how are you?
 
Becca
I'm well, thanks, Neil. How about you?
 
Neil
I'm pretty good. Today, we're talking about phones. Now, Becca, how much time do you spend on your phone every day?
 
Becca
Ooh, I don't know the number. I haven't checked my screen time in a while. So, your screen time is the time in which you spend looking on your phone screen. I probably would guess that I spend quite a few hours looking at my phone. How about you?
 
Neil
Yeah, I spend probably a lot of time on my phone every day, and I'm not really happy about that because I think it's a waste of time. But I do it, like millions of other people.
 
Becca
Mmm, yeah. I mean, phones can be very useful. You can get information very quickly.
 
Neil
Yes, this is true. So, they are also really handy of course for finding out information quickly, and you can do loads of things that used to be quite hard to do.
 
Becca
Yeah. One of those things that we can probably do better with phones is to connect with people and to have contact with people. Do you get lots of notifications from your friends and family on your phone?
 
Neil
Because I don't like spending too much time on my phone, I turned off my notifications. Now, notifications are the little messages that you get from apps when people or the app wants to tell you something.
 
Becca
OK. So, that's a good tip really, if you want to reduce your screen time, is to turn off your notifications.
 
Neil
Yeah. I also try not to doomscroll. What's doomscrolling?
 
Becca
That's probably how I spend a lot of time on my phone. So, when you doomscroll, you look at negative news stories or things that make you feel maybe a bit upset, a bit sad. And you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and it really doesn't make you feel good.
 
Neil
And so if you do, like you Becca, a lot of doomscrolling, that could be a sign of an addiction. Now, an addiction is something that you can't stop doing. So, for example, an obvious example is smoking. People who smoke – they have an addiction. It's something they have to do. And we hear a lot about phone addiction.
 
Becca
And it's really hard to stop an addiction. Even though I know doomscrolling is very bad for me and it doesn't make me feel good, I can't stop doing it.
 
Neil
I don't think you're alone, Becca, but do you think most people look at their phone too much?
 
Becca
I do, and I think that it doesn't matter how old you are. I see phone addictions with people my age, people younger and people older. I think that a lot of people are addicted to their phones.
 
Neil
Yeah. If you just look around anywhere. Most people have their head down at that angle, looking at their phone, missing what's going on in the real world.
 
Becca
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary we learnt in this episode. First screen time, and that's the time that you spend looking at an electronic screen. We usually use it to talk about looking at our phones.
 
Neil
We heard doomscrolling. Doomscrolling is when you look at one story after another, after another, after another, and they're usually bad news stories.
 
Becca
Notifications are the messages that apps will send you to make you check your phone.
 
Neil
If something is an addiction, it means that you can't stop doing it.
 
Becca
That's it for this week's episode of Real Easy English. You can head to our website for a free worksheet to test what you've learnt. That's at bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Neil
And we'll be back next week with another conversation in easy English. Goodbye for now.
 
Becca
Bye!

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