If your Sims seem to pull out their phones every five seconds, you’re definitely not imagining it. Phone use has been a long-running annoyance for Sims 4 players, especially when Sims stop what they’re doing to stare at their screens while walking, talking, or simply standing around.
The good news is that The Sims 4 now has an official way to control how much your Sims like using their phones.
The Sims 4 has several autonomous phone behaviors. This means Sims can decide to use their phones without you telling them to.
The problem became particularly noticeable after the update released alongside High School Years. Players reported Sims constantly checking their phones while walking, running, swimming, sitting, doing homework, and even during conversations.
How To Stop Sims From Autonomously Using Their Phones
As of the March 17, 2026 update, The Sims 4 has a proper in-game solution.
EA added four new base-game preferences:
Likes Phones
Dislikes Phones
Likes Computers
Dislikes Computers
These preferences affect whether Sims autonomously use phones and computers.
If you want your Sim to stop using their phone autonomously, give them the Dislikes Phones preference.
You can find this preference in Create a Sim. Open your Sim’s Preferences and look for the phone preference, then select Dislikes Phones.
Once a Sim has this preference, EA says they will no longer use their phone autonomously. This is currently the most straightforward way to stop a Sim from constantly reaching for their phone without your input.
If you give your Sim the Likes Phones preference, they’re more likely to use their phone autonomously.
EA specifically designed the new preferences to allow players to decide which Sims are phone-obsessed and which Sims would rather leave their phone in their pocket.
The March 2026 update also introduced a cooldown for autonomous phone use.
When a Sim autonomously uses their phone, they receive a six-Sim-hour cooldown before they want to autonomously use it again.
However, there are exceptions. The cooldown does not apply to non-active household Sims, Teen Sims, or Sims who have the Likes Phones preference. Sims with Dislikes Phones are intended to never use phones autonomously.
This means the game is no longer supposed to have every active Sim endlessly deciding to browse their phone whenever they have nothing else to do.
What About Teen Sims?
Teen Sims are a special case.
EA’s 2026 autonomy changes specifically state that the six-hour phone-use cooldown does not apply to Teen Sims.
That’s worth keeping in mind if you’re playing a household full of teenagers and wondering why they seem particularly attached to their phones.
If you don’t mind using mods, there are mods specifically designed to reduce or eliminate autonomous phone behavior.
Mods such as No Constant Phone and Leave the Phone Alone address the excessive phone animations and autonomous interactions.
Players have also reported using MC Command Center’s autonomy controls to disable particular phone interactions.
So, after years of Sims randomly checking their phones while you’re trying to get them to do literally anything else, you can finally decide which Sims are phone addicts and which ones would rather leave the thing in their pocket.