Smartphone addiction is real. I realized that I was wasting precious time, that I could productively spend on watching the latest show on Netflix. I started by removing Facebook app from the phone. I also disabled all notifications on Whatsapp, Inbox etc.. There, I got rid of my addiction. Easy right?
Well, it didn’t work. I started spending a lot more hours checking for any updates on Whatsapp, email and logged into Facebook from my browser. To make things worse, the area I’m living went through a Breaking news phase in the last few months and I was glued to my TV screen. A list of local news websites entered my browsing routine, and I keep circling between them every few minutes, even when I knew nothing new is gonna turn up.
I tried a few other strategies in the last few months like, logging off Slack at end of work, logging out of Facebook and uninstalling the email client from my phone. It seemed to make things worse. I felt unusually sad and get angry for the silliest of reasons.
I was researching about this, and it turns out that smartphone addiction is no different from drug addiction. Beyond a point, whenever you see an unread notification you brain releases dopamine and there is a sudden surge of happiness and naturally you tend to crave for more.
The thought of being in the same group as a drug addict isn’t a pleasant one. So, I’m going to take this as a challenge and get of this cycle. Instead of trying to kill all addictions at once, I’m going to replace it with a reward system. Starting today, I’ll no longer login to Facebook and will reward myself with something for every 30 days without Facebook, and pay fine at every time I break this.
Let the challenge begin!
P.S: A friend of mine recommended setting a long random password for FB and logout. This way, if you have to log back in you have to jump 2–3 screens and hopefully saner heads will prevail.
