Drowning in hundreds of text messages each day and feeling guilty about not being able to answer them, country music star Jason Bradley DeFord threw his cellphone into a Tennessee river and has decided not to have one throughout 2025.
The 40-year-old said he asked his driver to take him to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, formerly known as the Shelby Street Bridge, where he dropped his cellphone into Nashville’s Cumberland River.
“I was getting to a point that I was getting hundreds and hundreds of text messages a day, and I just was overwhelmed,” DeFord said.
The father of two, whose birthday was on Dec. 4, said not being able to respond to all the messages caused him feelings of guilt.
“I just could not field them all and then when I would finally sit down to go back through them, I would just feel like such a bad human for missing them,” DeFord added. “You get to a point where you’re like ‘I love so many people!’ There’s so much love on my phone and I just can’t field it.”
The Nashville native rose to fame in 2022 after his song “Son of a Sinner” won three Country Music Television (CMT) music awards. He’s been married to DeFord, whose stage name is Bunnie Xo, since 2016.
Scrolling through comments can be emotionally draining, especially when feedback is critical, according to Oasis Luxury Rehab therapist Joseph DeVasto.
“Even if you have someone helping manage your social media accounts, it may be difficult to step away,” DeVasto told The Epoch Times on Dec. 18.
The singer and song writer also vowed to forgo having a phone completely in the new year.
“This is maybe not the healthy way to do it, but I can confidently tell people I’m not going to have a phone all of [2025],” DeFord said.
His wife noted that this isn’t the first time DeFord has expressed frustration with his phone.
DeFord previously vowed to toss it off the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge.
“You did this when we first got together,” she said. “I don’t want people to think that this is something new and that he’s just being dramatic. My husband has been throwing phones away. I’ve had the same number for almost a decade. My husband has had about 17 for sure.”
Experts blamed DeFord’s feelings of guilt and sense of being overwhelmed on digital overload, which is when the brain or body experiences stress from being unable to process or cope with a constant stream of stimulation from smartphone notifications, interactions, and information.
“Practical ways to address digital overload for those of us who can’t toss our devices, include setting ‘do not disturb’ hours and disabling non-essential notifications,” Dr. Bryan Bruno, New York board-certified psychiatrist, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 19.
Symptoms of digital overstimulation include headaches, eye strain, disrupted sleep patterns, and anxiety, according to psychiatric nurse practitioner Shebna N. Osanmoh of Savant Care, a mental health clinic in Los Altos, California.
“The pressure to respond to messages, stay up to date on news and social media, and manage multiple digital tasks at once creates the perfect storm for overwhelming our cognitive abilities,” Osanmoh told The Epoch Times on Dec. 18.
Although limiting unnecessary stressful online contact can improve emotional balance by 22 percent, NEUROFIT co-CEO Andrew Hogue stops short of advising complete abstinence.
NEUROFIT is a stress relief app whose research shows that brief, body-based interventions like exercise, meditation and face-to-face social contact can help reduce accumulated stress by 54 percent within a week making it possible to maintain digital connection while preserving mental well-being.
“Hundreds of news alerts, text messages or activating videos can trigger a stress response that’s equal to hundreds of in-person interactions,” Hogue told The Epoch Times on Dec. 19.
DeFord did not respond to requests for comment.
“Awareness is the first step,” Atlanta-based Rise Counseling clinical director Mikela Hallmark told The Epoch Times on Dec. 19. “Then, work on uncovering what’s driving you to be on digital devices, and see if you can meet those needs without being on devices. Then, work to replace digital device use with healthy and life-giving things so that you don’t have to go back to the devices.”
