Break Your Phone Addiction using Phones
A Digital Wellbeing Guide
Smartphones are new to us humans, they took the world by storm only within the last 20 years and today almost everybody has one. We treat them as a part of ourselves and overlook what life would be without them. One could argue that they use it only for work-related purposes but face it, we all know what happens. However, some of us do use our phones wisely and be productive with them and if you happen to be one of them — great! You may close this and go on to find the solution to world hunger. For the rest of you that continue to read, you may or may not belong to the group who have fully accepted the content-consuming monster within.
Still unsure of where you fit it in? Do yourself a favour — take a minute to go into your phone’s settings and find the section named Digital Wellbeing. If you can’t find it, install Action Dash instead. Once complete, open it up and check your current usage at this time of the day and come back to this when you’re done. (If you had just installed Action Dash, this statistic wouldn’t have been recorded for you yet).
At the end of the day, it’s still your life to live, but just make sure your decisions are made rationally and are not at the being influenced by the pull of the almighty algorithm.
Most products on the internet are designed to keep your attention glued to the screen — Social Media and content streaming platforms in particular. A short amount of time spent on said platforms won’t do any harm in the short term, but over time, adds up into life-altering digital habits.
For all I know, I might’ve topped JEE if not for my “break sessions” spent watching YouTube!
But hear me out, you’re losing more than just time — you’re also losing out on your ability to focus. Our mind is similar to a muscle, the more you train it to do a certain task the better it becomes at it, Neuroplasticity they call it and this applies to our ability to focus as well. Years and months spent responding to the instant whims of our devices, train one’s mind to deviate towards getting distracted and seeking trivial instantaneous pleasure over delayed significant rewards.
In a highly competitive world, not being able to direct where your attention goes most of the time is the direct equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Let’s take me as an example, I’ve always wanted to learn to play a musical instrument but never found the time for it. But somehow, I always had the time to binge-watch a Netflix series, or endlessly scroll down on Instagram with no real purpose. Our digital lives are often way out of our control and reigning them back into your hands is agreeably a daring journey to embark on. Thankfully, the very devices that plague us with distractions also provide us with a plethora of apps to help us avoid the same. In the following section, I would like to introduce you to some apps which you might want to know about.
Digital Wellbeing by Google:
This is an application made for devices running on android (For iOS users, Screentime is the go-to alternative). To check if your device is supported, head on to the Play Store and search for “Digital Wellbeing”. I have included alternatives at the end which can accomplish the same and are more likely to be supported on all devices, in case Digital Wellbeing isn’t.
You can find the app installed in the app drawer, if you cannot locate it there, try looking for it in your settings :
You can enable the app to be visible on your list of apps later on from within the app.
Now that you’ve gotten it installed, fire it up and you should see this chart:
The pie chart shows the total amount of time that you have spent on your phone today and how this time was spread across multiple applications. In this particular screenshot, I seem to have spent quite a lot on Netflix and YouTube and I wasn’t even halfway through my day!
When it comes to productivity, it’s advised to dedicate one’s entire attention to a single task in order to achieve the “flow state”. A notification on your phone may force you to unlock and check, even if it may not be important at the moment. This could be disrupting your ability to maintain focus and thus hindering your chances of achieving a state of flow. The Unlocks counter is a fine indicator that corresponds to this. Simply put, the lesser your count — the better the quality of your usage.
Note: It is wise to consider that every person’s purpose of usage varies and when I say “lower the better” for “unlocks”, it is subjective to the user’s digital behaviour.
Dashboard:
The dashboard is a collection of graphed statistics regarding screen time, unlocks and notifications received, over the past few days/weeks. Not only does it give the overall values for phone usage, but also provides users with app-specific stats for a more targeted analysis of the user’s behaviour.
But, having the numbers behind something is only going to be as useful as knowing what you are going to do with them.
Setting Goals:
Now would be a good time to decide your goals. This part is completely individual-dependant and you need to choose what is best for you. For some, it may be reducing the time spent on social media down to say, 40 minutes a day. For others, it could be limiting the time they spend watching YouTube videos.
The point of having numbers is to help you have a clear idea about how well you are progressing towards your self-defined goal.
Start small, don’t be overly ambitious and try to cut down screen time by hours overnight or across multiple applications. Our brains can’t break old habits that easily and doing so will only make you bounce back to old ways sooner than you know it.
I advise you to make small changes over a large period as opposed to big changes over a short period. Start by cutting down screen time of just one app by 5–10 minutes every week, any more, and you will find yourself right back at square one in no time. Find this part intimidating? Don’t worry, this is where the Timer comes in handy.
Timer:
In the dashboard, you might have noticed an hourglass icon to the right of each application. Clicking on this timer will help you keep a check on your usage by limiting your access to the application to a specified amount of time per day. Personally, this feature has been a key part of cutting down the time I spent scrolling down mindlessly on Instagram. (I dropped down by 20 minutes over 2 weeks without a relapse). The fact that you have a set time left with the app forces you to consider whether what you are doing at the moment is worth your limited time.
Wind down:
The Wind Down feature is one of the most impactful features on an android device I’ve come across. Its purpose is to help you get off your device at night and get to bed on time, something almost everybody struggles to do.
The user can schedule the time at which the device would automatically turn on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ setting as well as turn on ‘Grayscale’ mode. The grayscale option is to be taken as a cue for the user to stop using the phone and get ready to head to dreamland. Over time it builds a habit where you see the screen go grey, you automatically prime yourself to go to bed.
Focus Mode:
Focus mode allows you to choose and restrict access to apps that you do not want to use or get distracted by while doing important tasks. The restriction could be automatically applied based on a user-defined schedule or can also be started manually at any time.
I’d suggest segregating 1–2 hours a day for productivity and have Focus mode go active during that time automatically. Use this time to get some serious work done without having any distractions. Whenever you are about to start doing something which requires you to concentrate, say an assignment, just turning on focus mode until you complete the task will go a long way in boosting productivity.
Alternative apps:
Action Dash (Android):
Action Dash can accomplish pretty much anything Digital Wellbeing could and is the go-to solution if your device doesn’t support it.
Screen Time (iOS) :
Screen Time is the direct iOS equivalent of Digital Wellbeing and is very similar to what Digital Wellbeing offers on Android.
Conclusion:
It is unlikely that just reading this article is going to change your life overnight. Changing digital habits is a hard process, agreed — but it does come with its benefits. If you have a feeling that less time on your phone could be good for you, I highly implore you to give it a shot. Maybe the next big star performer resides within you, waiting to be unbound from the shackles of digital media addiction.
The primary take away this article intended to deliver is to make you aware of how influential your digital habits can be towards your life in the long run and what tools are available at your disposal to help you take control over it. Even if you fail, you would certainly learn more about yourself in the process and hopefully use the knowledge for future endeavours.
