スマホ脳

• 読み: スマホのう
• ローマ字: sumaho nou
• 漢字の分解: 脳 (brain) — スマホ is a loanword abbreviation of スマートフォン (smartphone)
• 発音: /su.ma.ho noɯ/

意味

Smartphone brain — cognitive and psychological effects from excessive phone use, popularised by the Swedish book that became a bestseller in Japan.

スマホ脳 (literally 'smartphone brain') entered mainstream Japanese vocabulary following the massive success of Swedish psychiatrist Anders Hansen's book 「スマホ脳」, published in Japanese in 2021. The book argued that smartphones are re-wiring our brains in harmful ways — reducing attention spans, increasing anxiety, and disrupting sleep. It sold over 1.5 million copies in Japan alone, making スマホ脳 a household concept. The term is now used both to refer to the book's central thesis and more loosely to describe anyone who seems addicted to or cognitively impaired by their phone.

例文

1. スマホ脳読んで怖くなってスクリーンタイム制限かけた。
2. 最近集中力なくてスマホ脳かもって思ってる。
3. 子供にスマホ渡す前にスマホ脳読んでほしい。

使い方ガイド

場面: health, parenting, digital wellness, education

トーン: concerned, reflective

正しい言い方

• スマホ脳って本当にあるんだって、集中力がどんどん落ちるらしい。 (Smartphone brain is apparently real — it says your concentration keeps declining.)
• スマホ脳対策で寝る一時間前からスマホ見るのやめた。 (To combat smartphone brain, I stopped looking at my phone an hour before bed.)

避ける言い方

• 「スマホ依存」と「スマホ脳」を完全に同じ意味で使う (Using スマホ依存 and スマホ脳 interchangeably — スマホ依存 means addiction/dependency, while スマホ脳 refers specifically to the neurological and cognitive effects described in Hansen's framework)

よくある間違い

• Assuming スマホ脳 is an established medical diagnosis — it is a popular science concept, not a clinical term
• Pronouncing 脳 as のう with a falling tone — it should be の↑う↓ in standard Tokyo pitch accent

起源と歴史

Directly derived from the Japanese title of Anders Hansen's 2020 Swedish book 'Skärmhjärnan,' translated as「スマホ脳」by Shinchosha in 2021. スマホ (smartphone) + 脳 (brain). The book's extraordinary success in Japan — driven partly by TV appearances and social media discussion — made the compound term enter everyday usage beyond the book itself.

文化的背景

時代: Popularised 2021 following Japanese book release

世代: All ages; especially discussed by parents and educators

社会的背景: Universal

地域メモ: Used nationwide. The book's success was particularly notable in Japan compared to other markets, reflecting cultural anxiety around screen time in children.