Overcoming the Urge to Check Your Phone Constantly
The psychology behind phone addiction and steps to reclaim your focus
If I were to ask you why you originally created your social media accounts, you might come up with something similar to, “Well, to keep up with friends and family and see what they’re doing and stuff like that.” And that’s not a bad reason at all. In fact, it’s quite an honorable sentiment.
But as society becomes more dependent on these technologies, there’s an ever-growing problem, and that is that our intended use for these social media applications and what our daily use actually looks like are often two completely different things.
Many of us use social media and our smartphones compulsively, it’s like a nervous tick. There’s a certain need to check your phone all the time. It’s constantly pulling your attention away from whatever’s in front of you and back into your other online life. And I’m not gonna say this is ruining the world or anything like that — people are still showing up to work on time, and countries are still being run decently well, I guess. But the effects of this underlying itch are still measurable and are felt by pretty much anyone who owns a smartphone.
Maybe it’s when you’re mid-conversation with somebody, and things are going well, and you’re having a good conversation. And then that itch starts to happen, and you just want to pull out your phone for no reason. Even if you’re just swiping between pages, you’re not really paying attention to what the person is saying.
Or maybe it’s when you’re trying to write an email or an essay or an article, and it’s a little bit boring, and you find yourself drifting towards the new tab button just to hit F, Enter and realize that you already checked Facebook like 45 seconds ago, and there were no notifications, but you still checked anyway.
And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. And the weird thing is, this whole thing is an entirely new struggle. Humanity has only been dealing with it for about fifteen years. Apple rolled out the original iPhone in 2007, but it didn’t launch with any social media apps and didn’t even have an app store. Facebook didn’t reach 500 million users until July 2010, a number which is now 2.3 billion, and Instagram wasn’t even invented until later that year.
So, the relationship between humanity and social media is still in its infancy. We’re just kind of stumbling around, hitting our heads on walls, trying to figure out the best way to reap the rewards and the usefulness of these apps without hurting ourselves and our well-being in the process.
If you are somebody who looks at their phone way more often than you would like to admit, I’ve definitely been guilty of this. There’s actually evidence to believe that it’s not your fault because most of these apps are designed from the ground up to be addictive. Behind the glimmering promise of increased human connection is basically a slot machine in your pocket where you pull a lever, and fun stuff comes out.
These rewards are some of the most powerful and ancient rewards that can be exploited in the human brain: social validation. And I’m not making all this up; this isn’t some giant conspiracy. This is literally how these apps make money. They get paid by third-party companies who purchase ad space on their platform in the hopes that you, the user, interact with it. So the more time you spend on these apps, the more likely you are to click on or engage with these ads, and the more money these companies and these platforms make.
These multi-billion dollar companies are built entirely by taking control not of your money, not of your land or your livestock, but of your attention because your attention is their currency.
And that’s the underlying issue — we feel kind of helpless to compulsively use these apps. But they’re kind of useful, so you sort of need them. They do enhance your life in some ways, and you do use them for useful things, but they’re also taking away from your life in other ways because of their addictive nature.
You can find a balance. You can maximize the benefits of social media while not falling prey to its addictive effects. But unfortunately, you can’t attain this sort of freedom by little quick tips and tricks like, “Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock,” or “Only use your phone for one hour a day.” You really do need a paradigm shift. You need to adopt a new philosophy toward technology use.
One philosophy, in particular, is leading a sort of silent revolution, and it’s helping people regain their focus and take back control over their lives. It’s called Digital Minimalism.
In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport defines digital minimalism as, “A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support the things you value and then happily miss out on everything else.”
So, to better understand digital minimalism and how you can apply it to your life right now, one thing that was useful to me in understanding how digital minimalism works is to compare the philosophies of digital minimalism and digital maximalism.
The digital minimalist doesn’t mind missing out on a potential small benefit that a certain technology might give them if it has any risk of decreasing the quality of things that they already know to be of tremendous value to them, like their ability to focus. Contrast this with the philosophy of the digital maximalist who believes that any small potential benefit is worth downloading the app. If they think that Instagram will be a little bit fun for them or they have any sort of impulsive reason to download it, they download it immediately. If some application claims to make you more productive or more connected or anything, they’ll just download it without considering the larger picture of how that application’s daily use will fit into their lives and whether they really need it.
So, we’ve talked about the theory of digital minimalism, but I want to leave you guys with some practical wisdom as to how you can apply this directly right now in your lives. The number one thing you can do is a two-fold process.
The first one is to vet every application you use, and you do this by asking two questions:
- What are the benefits of using this application?
- Is this the best way to achieve these benefits?
Let’s take Instagram again, for example. I like to rip on Instagram because I actually deleted it right after reading Digital Minimalism. So, when I was deciding to delete it, my thought process went like this:
What are the benefits of using this application? My perceived benefits from Instagram were probably two-fold. First, I like to keep up with friends and family and see what they’re up to. By seeing updates on baby pictures, engagements, and stuff like that, I felt more connected to my friend’s network.
The second benefit I experienced from Instagram was probably that it was just fun. It was mildly entertaining. When I wanted a break from something, I could check Instagram, and it gave me a little dopamine hit.
Then I asked the second question, is this the best way to achieve those benefits? And no, they weren’t the best way to achieve those benefits. If staying up to date with my friends is important to me, then the best way to achieve that benefit is to call them or text them to set up a time to actually connect with them on a profound level. Maybe not even a profound level, just a genuine level. Because Instagram is super superficial. You’re not actually exchanging ideas and information and getting to know the person any better. So, in a way, Instagram wasn’t offering me that perceived benefit that I thought I was getting from it, to begin with.
Secondly, there are way better ways that I can entertain myself that don’t completely waste my time. If I want a dopamine hit, maybe I should go work out. There are healthier ways that I can get this entertainment. So, for that reason, Instagram didn’t really offer me much value that I couldn’t get in other areas of my life. So, I deleted it. And since I deleted it, that’s one less thing that’s pulling me away, sending me push notifications, and tempting me to go waste my time on it. That way, I can use that gained time and redirect it towards the things that are important in my life.
And that’s what digital minimalism is at its core. It’s being intentional with why you use your apps that are on your phone, on your computer, and figuring out why they exist in your life.
For instance, I also deleted LinkedIn recently because my perceived benefit of having LinkedIn was that I was more available to collaborate with in my professional network. I have only ever gotten one job opportunity from LinkedIn earlier on in my freelance video career, and that’s it. On a day-to-day basis, all it’s doing is sending me push notifications and emails and stuff like that, telling me that people joined my network. And I’m like, “Oh great,” in my mind, “this is more business opportunity potentially.” But it’s not worth it. It offers zero value.
But since I used to be a digital maximalist, I’m like, “Oh, there could be some potential value to having this app.” And that’s just dumb.
The second way that you can apply digital minimalism to your life right now is to optimize. Digital minimalism isn’t all about just deleting every app and then just facing the consequences of the ones you don’t delete. Part of it is optimization.
For instance, I can’t really get away from Facebook. So I know this whole Facebook group thing is a useful thing for me. So how do I use Facebook and not get distracted by it? That’s where optimization comes in.
The main thing about Facebook that pretty much anyone would find distracting is the newsfeed. One thing that I did was install a Newsfeed Eradicator. It’s available for Firefox, Chrome, and I’m pretty sure Safari as well. This replaces the home page — the newsfeed — with a motivational quote. I don’t really read the quote, but it just gets rid of the newsfeed, and that’s super helpful. You do some have apps for scroll ban on Instagram, youtube too that works for the short videos.
The second thing I did was delete the Facebook app from my phone because it has all these options for watching videos and playing games at the bottom. I don’t need that. I basically only need Messenger, and then when I really want to check in and allow people into the Facebook group, I’ll physically type in Facebook and do that. That’s it — that’s my entire Facebook experience. It’s really stripped down, and it allows me to focus. It has allowed me to view Facebook more as a tool for my business rather than an excuse to waste 30 minutes watching viral Facebook videos.
Digital minimalism isn’t about rejecting technology; it’s about being intentional with it. By carefully selecting and optimizing the apps you use, you can reclaim your focus and direct your time towards what truly matters.
If this resonates with you, you can read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism too. (affiliate link below)
Thank you for reading!
Also, check out my other story here :
