Taming The Beast
Five practical ways to take control of your smart phone addiction
In my last post, “Your Phone Might Be Killing You”, I challenged myself to go a whole month without a smart phone to see what would happen — positive or negative. I wrote about the danger of losing control of our mobile devices and the addictive potential they have to deeply harm us and our relationships.
Since concluding that experiment, I have gained a whole new perspective on the unhealthy patterns that were contributing to my compulsive behaviors. I was able to see the things I was doing that fed the addiction and made it more powerful.
I’ve since gotten my smart phone back, but not without first making some major changes to ensure I didn’t fall back into the same habits.
Below I’ve listed the most effective ideas I’ve implemented to help restore a healthy relationship with my mobile device. These are easy things that anyone can do with a little bit of willpower, I hope you find them helpful.
Learning to be comfortable with boredom
For the first time in history, a world of endless entertainment lies dormant in our pockets, ready to jump in at any moment and save us from the discomfort of facing ourselves and our lives.
We can read celebrity gossip in the grocery checkout line, listen to podcasts in the park, and browse all of our favorite social feeds from anywhere in the world. We can escape whenever we choose to.
But what if we didn’t have to be constantly entertained? What if we gave ourselves permission to be bored again?
What if being alone with our own thoughts and observations was actually a beneficial part of the human experience? What if silent contemplation had the power to enhance creativity, establish thoughts and identities, and restore mental focus?
My personal experience seemed to prove just that, the lack of stimulation from my mobile device has actually improved my own ability to think clearly, create new ideas and connections, and cultivate mindfulness and focus.
Boredom also provided me with a natural sense of motivation. Motivation that could be redirected to discover new things, create and achieve goals, and be a better version of myself.
Instead of falling into the habit of mindless and compulsive mobile behavior, I was forced to redirect that energy into something real and productive. Either that, or just give up and fall asleep (which I also got better at).
Next time you’re on the subway, or sitting on the toilet, or laying in bed with a partner, instead of falling into your screen, consider spending a bit of time focusing on your breath and letting your thoughts roam free.
Or read a book. Look around you. Imagine the possibilities.
Pulling the plug on notifications
During the prime of my mobile phone usage, I was getting fifty to one hundred notifications per day.
Every time a new notification would appear, my phone would vibrate with delight, stealing my attention away for a moment and tempting me to fully engage with it.
The desire to check the contents of the notification was incredibly strong. My attention was constantly fragmented, and the content of the majority of the notifications was utterly trivial. Sometimes I was so distracted I felt like I was watching somebody else’s life unfold from a distance. I didn’t even consider trying to shut them off.
The first thing I did when I turned my phone back on after thirty days was to disable 95% of the app notifications.
Almost none of your apps are important enough to constantly notify you of their activity. I know this because since turning off my notifications, I don’t feel like I’ve actually missed anything.
This change alone reduced the urge to engage with my device drastically.
If you’ve got an iPhone, managing your stream of notifications is pretty easy. Simply load your Settings app, click on “Notifications”, and flip the switch on all of the applications you want to silence. It’s probably just as easy on Android, but I’m not sure.
No more pings, no more excuses to engage.
Keeping your phone out of the bedroom
According to a recent Huffington Post survey, over 63% of young people aged 18–29 admit to sleeping with their devices. This is insane. Not only can we not keep our devices out of our bedrooms, we can’t even keep them out of our beds.
I found that having my phone in the bedroom with me caused me to stay up later, sleep more poorly, and feel a lot more stressed out. This is something that seems innocuous at first, but the negative effects build up over time.
Consider making the bedroom a sacred place reserved especially for rest and relaxation. Keep the phone (or laptop, or tablet…) stored and charging in a separate room entirely.
By doing so, you will reap the following benefits:
- Reduced sense of hyper-vigilance caused by constant notifications
- Reduced blue light emissions that inhibit the production of Melatonin (the sleep hormone)
- Reduced urge to surf the internet, check email, or scroll through social media feeds
- Improved ability to wind-down naturally, allowing you to fall asleep faster and gain more restorative benefits
- Improved communication with your partner
As a bonus, you won’t be tempted to check your email as soon as you wake up in the morning. And if you use your phone as an alarm clock, consider getting yourself one of the analog varieties instead.
After making this switch, I now fall asleep within fifteen minutes every night and wake up feeling much more rested than before.
Consider banishing your device from the bedroom, it will make a huge difference in how you feel.
Prioritizing face-time over screen-time
When you put your phone on the table between yourself and a friend or family member, you’re essentially saying — “I just need to keep this here in case something more important than you comes up”. That’s a pretty rude thing to say to someone, don’t you think? I used to do it all the time.
Show the people that you care about, in that moment, they are more important than any notification, email, or other piece of communication that may come across your screen. Whatever it is, it most certainly can wait a few minutes.
Remember, you don’t always have to carry a phone in your pocket or purse either. If you’re about to enter a restaurant, or hang out with some friends, or play with your kids, consider leaving your phone in a place where it won’t bother you. Leave it in the car, or on the kitchen table, or in the office. Turn it off completely. Forget about it for a while and allow yourself to experience and engage fully in whatever reality you are currently presented with. You can always return to the phone later and catch-up on what you missed.
Learn to disengage with the device on your own terms. You have control of the relationship and can decide when it’s no longer serving you. Don’t let your phone control how you choose to invest your attention.
Face it, your real friends and family are a lot more important than your Facebook friends. In fact, recent studies show that the vast majority of your online friends are not your real friends at all.
Downgrading to a dumb-phone
If you still can’t maintain control over your compulsive habits after making these changes, it may be time to try giving up the smart phone completely.
My experience ditching my smart phone for a month was a great first step to illuminating the unhealthy patterns that I couldn’t previously see. I highly recommend giving it a try.
If you can’t commit to going thirty days, try starting with a week. If you can’t do a week, maybe give it a try for a weekend. You might be surprised at what you discover, even with a small amount of effort.
I know it’s not realistic for most people to completely sever all communications with the outside world, so my suggestion is to swap your smart-phone for something simpler, like an old flip-phone. You maintain calling and texting but lose all the other bells and whistles that make your phone so damn addictive. They can be had on eBay for less than $30 and are mostly compatible with your existing sim-cards and wireless plans.
Who knows, making your phone dumb again might actually make you smarter.
Designers and developers are constantly searching for new ways to make their products and websites more addictive. Addictive apps get more click and generate more revenue. We live in an age where toddlers are becoming so addicted to iPads that they need therapy. Entire generations of teenagers are becoming addicted to internet pornography. Families would rather spend dinner time with their devices than talk to each other across the table. This is not going to stop, it’s only going to get worse.
We can’t control that, what we can control is how we personally use our devices in our own worlds. How we decide to focus our attention is up to us. In order for us to thrive in a society where everyone is addicted to their digital lives, we need to become acutely aware of how our phones are affecting us and how we choose to use them. We need to reassert dominance over our devices to ensure that they are serving us, and we aren’t serving them.
This may not be a complete playbook for taming your addiction, but it’s a start. If there is something you’ve tried that works for you (that I’ve talked about or otherwise), please share it below in the comments, I’d love to hear about it.
