Addiction
5 Simple Steps to Check Your Phone Addiction
by Shuba R.
People are spending more time in the virtual world and less and less time in the real world. Everywhere you see, while walking, driving, riding the subway and even while meeting other people, you can see people glued to their phones. On average, people spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones per day, which amounts to nearly 50 days per year.
I became acutely aware and shocked by my own phone usage, when I looked at my phone usage with Screen Time available on the iOS. Much of my time was spent on social media, especially Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Quora and WhatsApp. Determined to no longer let me phone control my life, here are some of the simple steps I took to become more mindful.
1. Disable all Notifications and set your phone in the silent mode
As soon as I disabled notifications, I found that I was not constantly getting distracted every time a notification came in. This did not disrupt my flow and I was able to focus on the task at hand.
2. Check your phone only at specific intervals
One of the poor habits that many of us have is checking our phones before going to bed and the first thing after waking up. This leads us feeling disoriented early in the morning instead of feeling fresh and focused. I altered my habits to keep myself away from my phone right before bed and right after waking up. I found that I was able to sleep better and concentrate on my tasks better when I made this alteration to my habits. I also made sure that I had a specific time to check my phone during the day and allotted 15 minutes for this. This helped me feel that I wasn’t missing out on anything and allowed me to get up to date.
3. Set limits for apps on your phone
I used Screen Time effectively and set limits on the time spent on the phone and on various apps that distracted me from my goals.
4. Uninstall apps on which you spend a lot of time
By observing the usage of apps on Screen Time, I looked at the major ones on which I was wasting the most time and promptly uninstalled them. Of course, I install them once in a while when I want to check something, but this has created one more layer of friction and prevents mindless scrolling.
5. Set your phone in Grayscale mode
Once I set my phone in Grayscale mode, the phone became infinitely less interesting. I was no longer glued to it as I had been before and I found it far easier to detach from it. Grayscale mode plays a psychological trick on our brain, which is attracted to color. By draining the color from the phone, it becomes less fun to use.
I hope these tips will help you curb your phone addiction and help you live in the moment. Spending 20 or 30 minutes per day may not seem like much, but it adds up. There are far more interesting and productive things you can do with your life rather than being a slave of technology and spending your life mindlessly scrolling through your phone.
About the Author
Shuba is a blogger at Bazaar Expert who blogs about business, software products, personal finance and marketing. She is interested in minimalism and is always looking for ways to declutter her life.
