Phone Addiction: How to Get Over It?

With the prices of smartphones coming down every year and the easily available technology, it is hard to not depend on your smartphones for everything. From online banking, online shopping, fitness apps, and even apps reminding us to drink water on time – whatever that required us to go outside previously, is at our fingertips today. The advancement of modern technology is partially responsible for the widespread phone addiction in people nowadays. 

Understanding Phone Addiction

Phone addiction may occur as a result of being scared or anxious to stay without the internet. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), a popular internet abbreviation, often comes into play when a person is abnormally attached to their phones. 

Smartphone addiction is typically diagnosed by measuring how many hours an individual spends on their phone apart from being involved with some sort of work. This addiction can be seen among people of various ages – ranging from toddlers to even senior citizens. 

The constant need for checking one’s phone, which sometimes goes beyond reason, is how an individual can self diagnose the early symptoms of phone addiction. In the more severe stages of phone addiction, people can become violent, aggressive, and may even need the help of a medical professional to get rid of the addiction and rectify behavioural issues.

Symptoms of Phone Addiction

Some common symptoms of phone addiction are listed below.

1. You feel anxious when you are away from your phone or when there are connectivity issues in your phone.
2. You use your phone to the extent that it hampers your daily chores or activities.
3. Mobile phone usage has affected your health adversely such as neck sprains, headaches, or blurry vision.
4. You notice a drastic change in your lifestyle where most of your hours are suddenly occupied by your phone.
5. Usage of a mobile phone has ruined your relationship with someone.
6. You find it exceedingly difficult to get off your phone when hanging out with someone in person.
7. You find it hard to keep track of the time when using your phone.
8. You feel a deep sense of relief when you get to use your phone after being away from it for a short while.

Impact of Phone Addiction

The ways in which phone addiction affects us are listed below:

1. Disruption of the sleep cycle
2. Poor mental health condition
3. Increased risk of accidents
4. Tendency to become obese
5. Poor productivity rate
6. Low attention span and difficulty concentrating
7. Risk of memory loss

How to Effectively Manage Phone Addiction?

Let us explore some easy ways a mobile phone addiction can be managed.

1. Charge Your Phone Away from the Bed or Sofa

Charge your phone away from any comfortable surface, where you can settle so that it is difficult for you to use the phone while it is getting charged. Try to avoid using power banks. Use this time for other activities.

2. Use Timer in Apps

Most popular social media apps come with a timer facility for each day to tackle phone addiction. An alarm goes off every time you reach that day’s quota of using the particular app.

3. Set Up No Mobile Phone Hours

Set aside 2 hours everyday when you would not touch your mobile phone no matter how badly you want to do it. Utilise this time for self introspection. Take up a hobby such as gardening or reading books to distract yourself from your mobile phone. It may be difficult in the beginning but it will become easier eventually as you get used to it.

4. Do Not Use Your Mobile Phone After You Hit the Hay

A lot of us have a habit of using our mobile phones last thing before sleeping off and using it first thing in the morning after waking up, before leaving our bed. This may severely interfere with your sleep cycle and may also make you suffer from insomnia. Try to stop using the phone once you turn off the lights and hit your bed. To help the situation, you may keep your phone some place else before coming to bed.

Conclusion

Grappling with a mobile phone addiction can be difficult, especially in a world where we have to depend on mobile phones from banking to shopping. Some ways of managing a mobile phone addiction is by setting aside some time everyday when you will not not touch your phone and setting timers on apps that you use the most.