5 Proven Ways to END your Phone Addiction
Phone addiction is a significant issue in modern society. Most people spend over 3 hours per day on their phone, that's ⅛ of our life, or even worse, almost ⅕ of our awake time.
In our post, we collect 5 easy things you can start doing right now to overcome your phone addiction. It is important, that you realize that spending countless hours per day on your phone, most of the time, has no real benefit for you. Although it's okay to relax and waste some time now and then, you should consider reducing the time spent on your phone to enjoy life to its fullest.
#1 - Use the word "Don't" instead of "Can't" to start spending less time on your phone
Here's how: By phrasing your sentence like this "I can't spend more than one hour per day on my phone" or "I can't check my phone more often than once a day", you act, as if an external force is forbidding you to check your phone. By rephrasing your sentences like this: "I don't spend more than one hour per day on my phone" or "I don't check my phone more often than once a day", you give yourself the power to have made the decision not to do a certain thing.
Therefore, always remember to use the word "don't" instead of "can't" if you want to set yourself some ground rules to start overcoming your phone addiction.
#2 - Start by monitoring your phone usage time
Before you can start working on your phone addiction, you should at least know how bad the situation already is. Most of the time, people don't realize how much time they are spending on their phones until it's either too late or they start installing a tracking app.
Some operating systems, such as iOS already have a built-in feature to look up your daily & weekly phone usage time. If you're using android though, I'd suggest you download one of the several free apps to monitor your daily time spent on your phone.
Once you have an average number of hours spent on your phone you can compare yourself to this list to see how well you're doing:
How much screen time is too much?
- < one hour per day 👉 amazing; you don't have a phone addiction, you can stop reading now :)
- one to two hours per day 👉 great; you are below average and most likely are not in danger of phone addiction
- two to three hours per day 👉 ok; you're quite average. I'd suggest you reduce your screen time a little big but that's up to you
- three to five hours per day 👉 bad; you spend too much time on your phone, you might already be addicted
- > five hours per day 👉 very bad; if you spend this much time on your phone every day you're most likely addicted to your phone. But don't worry, we have some easy ways to overcome your addiction listed below :)
#3 - Start slowly, and create a plan
If you rush into things and try to go from 5+ hours daily screen time to 1h per day immediately, you might fail immediately and become discouraged to try anything at all.
If you want to tackle your phone addiction, you should start slow. For instance, start by categorizing your apps into "good" and "bad". For instance, a news app might be time well spent whereas Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are most likely a waste of time for you.
Next, find out which of the "bad" apps you use the most. For instance, you might be using YouTube 3 hours per day and waste a lot of time on said platform. To start reducing your overall screen time you might want to start by only reducing the time spent on YouTube and only allowing you to spend additional time on "good" apps. That way, you might not even reduce your screen time at all at the beginning, but you'd be shifting your time spent on your phone to a less wasteful area.
#4 - Create phone-free moments
Another helpful thing to overcome your phone addiction is to create "phone-free" moments in your life.
phone-free moments are timespans in which you don't use your phone at all (you might not even bring your phone with you). A great start for many people is to not use your phone at lunch, dinner or when you spend time with your friends. If you're doing sports for instance, just leave your phone at home when you go there so that you don't have to resist the temptation to check it every 3 minutes.
Another thing you might wanna try is to refrain from using your phone after 10 pm for instance. And also, to ensure you're getting enough rest throughout the day, turn on airplane mode or turn off your phone when you go to bed. This way, you won't be distracted by any social media notifications or late-night texts from friends.
#5 - Replace your phone-usage habit
You don't break habits - you replace them. You cannot simply get rid of 3 hours wasted every day just by really really wanting it. You need to find something else to fill the new time you're gaining.
What you want to do, is to find a new habit that acts as a stand-in for the habit you're trying to give up. Basically: you replace a bad thing with a good thing.
For instance, instead of checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & co, try to read a great book instead, or spend some time out in nature with some friends. You might even pick up a completely new hobby to spend all the free time you're having now.
Summary
As you can see, overcoming a phone addiction doesn't necessarily have to be hard. By following our 5 easy stepy you'll be already miles ahead of many others.
Always remember: Overcoming an addiction is always challending. Don't expect this process to be easy or even enjoyable, especially in the beginning. Try to remember that the end result is what you're working for and that you should never give up, especially when things are getting tough.
