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In today’s world, technology does have a lot of advantages, but your phone should not always be the only thing you should be focused on all the time. With advantages, there is always room for some disadvantages as well. The best is to understand when it is time to draw a line when things turn into an addiction and sometimes that is what we miss understanding when. Phone addiction is one such common thing.
Similar to other addictions like drug addiction, alcoholism, or gambling, phone addiction can be one such kind of an addiction too. Although, it may not be dangerous to your health like alcohol, but its addiction can affect human consciousness, focus, and relations with the world. Hence some tips and strategies will help you to get rid of that phone addiction. So keep reading to find out how to!
Tips to get rid of phone addiction
1. Change the setting of your phone
One of the most common suggested ideas for reducing cell phone addiction, is to reduce the usage by simply changing the settings on your phone. Some of the most common suggested ideas are-
- To Turn off notifications or put on do not disturb mode
- Set screen to black-and-white
- Get rid of apps from your home screen that sends continuous new updates
- Change notification setting
- Set a longer passcode
- Make use of airplane mode
The best opinion is to turn off notifications, it is something everyone should do regardless of how much time they spend using their cell phone. Just because every time someone wants to text you, email you, share a meme, or tag you in a post on social media doesn’t mean you must always give your attention. Using such changes can be helpful, you can set a particular time each day to change these settings on your cell phone.
2. Put a plastic cover over your phone
When you place a plastic cover in the middle of the phone, the cover allows users to answer phone calls easily but other uses of the phone like texting, and checking Instagram, all such things difficult or rather limited. To elaborate it in simple words, every time you want to use your phone, it makes you ask yourself, is it a priority? This brings about a mindfulness exercise as well.
If you really want to use the phone, set your intention for why, and if it is necessary then you can think if you want to remove the plastic cover. As the cover won’t let you touch the screen and you will need to remove it every time you want to use it. The plastic cover trick is not about making your phone impossible to use, it is about bringing mindfulness. As opposed to mindlessly unlocking your phone every 3 minutes to see how specific you use it.
3. Remove apps that distract you from your home screen
Using your phone too much is unconscious behavior. We spend all our time shifting from Facebook to Instagram, checking the weather, wishing to wish listing new products, and to text. But if you have to specifically make use of an app to use it, you will cut down on the unnecessary time that you give to your phone.
For a change keep the apps that you want to encourage yourself to use, like those for reading or learning a new language, meditations, and remove anything that you want to limit your time by separating it with folders on your second page of apps. To take a step further, you can even get rid of certain apps such as Facebook or Twitter entirely and relegate your usage to your smartphone’s web browser but it may seem time-consuming and also use a lot of your data.
4. Make a schedule for yourself
One of the most basic steps to start with for getting off your phone is by setting alarms dictating how often you can check it. You can start with every 15 minutes, then move to every half hour, every 45 minutes, or every hour. When your alarm goes off, spend one minute going through all notifications once and for all, and then reset the timer. To hold yourself accountable and to reduce response anxiety, it is best to be responsible for our actions by understanding not everyone needs our attention all the time and we should keep that boundary.
5. Turn off as many push notifications as possible
You don’t always have to be disturbed by every comment or like that your latest Instagram picture receives or with a notification that your favorite podcast just released a new episode. That is why the simple way to get rid of any distractions is to turn off push notifications for as many apps as you can. To do that you can go to your settings and notifications to control your preferences. You can leave notifications on for important things for the desired time, for email, chat app messages, calendars, and health apps. Also in the afternoon, you can switch off all notifications for some time when you do not need them during your work hours or before going to bed an hour or two prior.
6. Interact in person
In today’s world, and this modern generation we always end up interacting with our nearest and dearest over the phone, through texting or calling, or on social media, instead, why not find time for face-to-face meetings at least sometimes a week. It may be fun to communicate with people on social media but that fun does not last long.
Try communicating with people in real. This generation lacks trust and confidence in other people so when you meet people in real life in person, share real emotions and conversations. That helps you to trust other people. That feeling is something that makes us believe that this world is a better place when you interact and get to know other people in person.
7. Avoid charging your phone near your bed
This is one of the important things one can learn today. Do not always charge your phones in your bedroom. A great way to know to keep yourself off your phone is to not charge it in your bedroom. As you always end up being distracted by the constant need to check it.
Some of the negative effects of having your phone beside charging are poor sleep, hindered communication, and intimacy can be taken care of by keeping your cell phone out of your bedroom. By keeping your phone out of the bedroom it will not be so easy for you to get up and get it which will help you to stay away from it.
8. Use apps to boost self-control
For every solution, there is an app you can use. In addition, there are a few amazing apps built to help us limit our time on our devices.
Let me list you some of the apps like Space- it helps to set goals and track your daily progress to manage your habits. Forest- is a paid one it helps to stay focused and be present. Forest is a greatly designed app that brings gamification to productivity and as a result it plants real trees based on your habits of using the phone. Moment- is to get you through short, daily exercises. Moment helps you to healthily use your phone. Flipd- is great if you are trying to reduce phone usage, it locks away distracting apps for complete focus. Screen Time- will help you to set daily usage limits on your phone or specific apps.
9. Replace a bad habit with a good one
When you’re bored and want to entertain yourself, or just indulge in some work to kill time, most of the time we end up using our phones but instead why not grab a book or put on your favorite pair of shoes and go out in nature for a walk instead of your phone? Wouldn’t it make you feel better as well?
It is also suggested by Psychologists to replace a bad habit of constant phone checking with a good one. So now when you are in a coffee shop or have some spare minutes, feel free to read a few pages of your favorite author or go for a walk around, instead of scrolling news feed on your mobile phone.
10. Change your thinking
When you change your thinking it will help you to refresh your emotions and influence your perspective towards using your cell phone. You need to understand that whatever you’re going to check on the phone is not as essential as it may seem. So next time when you are tempted to text or read the news feed, ask yourself if this is urgent or if it can be given your attention later.
This will help you to also be mindful. After a certain age, social media and using phones do not excite as much, therefore it is best to decide when to give priority and mind to things that may not need your attention. You will start to build a life that will be controlled by you just by changing your mindset.
Phone addiction and its effect on your life
Cell Phone addiction is real. Today various experts around the world talk about nomophobia which is irrational but still feel fearful of being without your smartphone when you want or are unable to use it. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (R), phone addiction is very similar to the addiction to gambling and one needs to look into it. If you are addicted to your phone always it is not only about losing your time but also a risk of different physical problems, such as-
- The pain and discomfort in the eyes when using your phone daily for more than 2 hours a day because of the screen time.
- Increased illnesses due to germs on the phone
- Neck issues.
- Eye fatigue.
- Distraction from everyday life is another and mostly the biggest harm the addiction to a smartphone can cause.
- Lack of focus on work and in general.
Conclusion
Learning to control your habits is one of the best things, it will help you to build a better life for yourself. Such a habit of being addicted to the phone can have a bad impact on your mental and physical health.
So make use of the above tips and strategies which can help you to reduce your phone addiction and lead a better life. If you know someone who is struggling with phone addiction you can help them by sharing these tips with them. Thank you for reading!
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