I never imagined I’d be writing this, although phone addiction has been growing and growing ever since the introduction of the smartphone. Nowadays, with smartphones so powerful you don’t even need to carry a laptop on you anymore, it can sometimes be tough to put your smartphone down, or stop picking it up every five seconds.
It has reached a point where users in the U.S. check their phone at least 80 times a day, with 80% starting within less than an hour of waking up. We wrote an article that gives you signs of how addicted to your phone you really are.
So we felt like apart from encouraging you to immerse yourself in the latest technology, to limit yourselves. So here is a list of things you can do that will help you limit the use of your smartphone.
Download an app that tells you how many times you check your phone
An app called Checky, keeps count of how many times you’ve unlocked it in a day, meaning it will take count of how many times you checked your phone for notifications or to have a quick scroll of your Instagram feed. Don’t be too shocked when you find out you’ve checked your phone over 300 times in one day.
Set your own limits
This too, can be helped using an app called Moment. This app tracks how many minutes you’ve spent on your phone and it also lets you set your own limit for how much time you want to be spending on your phone.
Kill the notifications
Don’t panic, people still value you as a person, even though you aren’t receiving notifications from your group chat every 20 seconds. Turn off all the unimportant notifications from your settings app on iOS or Android.
Only for the brave: Delete social media apps
If you’re feeling extra brave and you’ve had enough, delete social media apps. Start with Instagram and end with Facebook. If you aren’t feeling so brave, sign out your accounts, so it will be a long-ish process every time you try to sign into your social accounts.
Leave your phone in another room during a meal
This will help you to actually enjoy your meal and interact with the people around you. Using a smartphone at table automatically conveys to everyone that you’re not with the people at the table, even though you are.
This list might seem hard at first to follow, but we are sure you have it in you to stop being a slave to your phone.
Did you ever go longer than two days without a phone? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.
