Beating my smartphone addiction

Matt Blake
Jul 22, 2017 · 4 min read

Back in May, I attended a talk at a conference by author and TED speaker Simon Sinek. He’s become a predominant advocate for an alternative approach to looking at millennial. Rather than dumping lots of lazy blame at their feet, Sinek seeks to explain why millennials are how they are.

Smartphones and the rise of the internet are central to his observations. For millennials and those younger they did not watch the internet and social media rise, these blessings and curses have always been with them.

From his thoughts on the expectations of instant gratification (Netflix, Amazon Prime etc) I found myself being asked,

“Are you addicted to social media?”

As a youth worker I have seen the endless distraction and escapism Facebook and Snapchat, in particular, offer to our teenagers today but it was only after Simon Sinek had finished talking that I was personally challenged.

Whilst queuing for the toilets without thinking my hand went into my pocket, pulled out my iPhone and I had the Facebook tab open in front of me. But I did not have time to start the endless scroll through my newsfeed before the man in front of me said,

“You’re addicted aren’t you?”

Sheepishly my phone returned to my pocket and I found myself admitting,

“Yes… I think I might be!”

Over the next few days I pondered my response and other questions such as,

  • How long do I spend scrolling without purpose through a newsfeed a day? How much do I waste!?
  • Am I loosing time with my loved ones because of it?
  • If I have 20 seconds to fill in a queue isn’t it better to talk to those around me?

What’s so bad about a social media addiction?

The internet is still in it’s infancy and research about the long term affects on mental health are just coming in. Recently Forbes ran the headline,

In time addictions:

  • destroy relationships
  • take up time
  • cost money
  • make people’s lives worse
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Is it so surprising that there are so many cases of young adults and teenagers struggling with poor mental health when we have a generation growing up lacking in self-esteem (everyone else on Instagram has a perfect life), who are instead of looking to the people around them for support and comfort look to a YouTuber (who yes can offer some helpful advice but the relationship is only one way), who when we want to watch a movie we stream it instantly, when want anything off Amazon it can come tomorrow. No more awkward chat up lines, just swipe right.

We can have everything we want in our life instantly: There is no app for that. Real friendships take hard work and time.

If we turn to social media during the crisis in our lives for that feeling of instant relief … we will never know the care of our friends and family around us.

What can be done?

I think about where I put my phone

If I am with a friend and my phone is on the table between us what message am I sending about how I value my friend? I do use my phone as an alarm clock and whilst Simon Sinek’s advice is to, “Buy an alarm clock!”, I’ve chosen a compromise. My phone doesn’t live on my bedside table, where late night Facebook or Reddit is a temptation, it lives on the other side of our bedroom.

Being aware of social media procrastination: Moment iOS

I wanted to find an app which would track how often I woke my phone during the day and how much time I was wasting on each app. Moment for iOS does just that.

Moment offers my helpful reminders throughout the day about how long I spend staring at the phone. For anyone like me, once I realised it was sucking just so much time, I found myself quickly putting my phone away at each shameful reminder. These screenshots show just a bit of the data Moment gives you insight into.

  • I once spent 37 minutes on my phone uninterrupted!
  • No surprise that Facebook is top of my most used apps.

Matt Blake

Written by

Freelance website consultant. Lover of tech, apps and exciting new web services.

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