Is it possible to become addicted to your phone? Here’s what you need to know about how to use your phone in a healthy way and when you might need a break from the screen.
There is also a section with tips on how to use your phone less throughout the day, which can help you break a bad habit. You don’t have to give up your phone completely to spend less time scrolling, but you can learn to set limits.
Smartphones have made people more connected and more productive in ways that are hard to overstate. But there is a chance that some people can have too much of a good thing.
According to the International Journal of Cognition and Behavior, some signs of smartphone addiction include checking or using your phone all the time, feeling anxious when you’re not near it, and using your phone in a way that gets in the way of your social life or other activities. It is sometimes linked to an addiction to the internet as a whole.
Also, many people are addicted to or overuse their smartphones, so you’re not alone if browsing takes up more time than you’d like. Harvard University says that constant texts and social media notifications give your brain a rush of social information, making it hard to look away. No wonder so many people find it hard to put their phones down for long periods of time.
The Bad Things About Being Addicted to Your Phone
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health says that too much smartphone use is often linked to anxiety, poor sleep, and even problems with the fingers, neck, back, and shoulders. If you’ve ever stayed up too late looking at your phone, you may recognise some of these signs.
How to stop using your phone so much
If you want to use your smartphone less, for whatever reason, you can slowly wean yourself off of it. Most likely, it will be easier to slowly cut back on your smartphone use than to make a big change all at once.
- Don’t play games on your phone
Make the bright, appealing phone a little less interesting. It sounds simple, but taking away the bright, bold colours makes the phone instantly less interesting and less likely to catch your eye. Even texts and websites lose some of their appeal.
Set its screen to grayscale to start. Before choosing Monochromacy in the Simulate Color Space settings on an Android phone, you need to turn on developer mode. Trent B1 has a YouTube video that shows all the steps in detail.
- Keep track of how much time you spend in front of a screen.
Set goals for how long you want to talk on the phone each day, and then stick to them. Contrary to what you might think, downloading an app that keeps track of how much time you spend on your screen can help here.
The OffScreen app helps limit overall screen time. Set up lets you choose how long you can talk on the phone each day. The OffScreen app also tracks your movement to stop you from using your phone while walking. It also lets you block certain apps at certain times of the day to help you stay on task.
- Be careful about what you pick up
It can be so easy to play with the phone whenever there’s a lag in your day (and chances are, almost everyone around you is on a phone, too). Find ways to reward yourself for leaving the phone alone to keep this common habit in check.
Using the Forest app rewards you for ignoring the phone for set amounts of time, for instance. Stay focused during set work sessions to grow a virtual forest filled with an amazing variety of trees.
In addition, check screen time on Android in the Digital Wellbeing screen, which displays the number of times you unlock the phone. On an iPhone, review the number of pickups on the Apple Screen Time feature. Keeping track of pickups, and gradually learning to fiddle around with the phone less often, will result in less screen use overall.