Put Your Smartphone in Its Place

put-smartphone-down

Try this today

• Designate a phone-free day. Choose one day of the week and take a “smartphone sabbatical.” Focus on doing things that don’t involve screens, like reading or socializing in person. If you get antsy, remind yourself that you can reconnect with your phone the following morning.
• Use apps for help. Take advantage of Apple’s built-in Screen Time feature. Go to Settings on your iPhone and click on Screen Time. This will reveal how much time you’re spending on your phone each day and allows you to set time limits for using games and social-networking sites. Android users can download Google’s Digital Wellbeing, open it from the settings panel, select Digital Wellbeing, and view a chart that shows app usage time. To implement time restrictions, click on Dashboard, tap the arrow next to each app listed and designate your desired daily time limits for each.
• Deem certain areas of your home smartphone-free. Keep your bedroom a place for sleeping and relaxing at the end of the day. And treat yourself to some true privacy while in the bathroom.
• Identify smartphone-free times. Eat meals without your phone next to you on the table. Resist the urge to reach for it when you’re stopped at a red traffic light in the car or just because you feel bored.

Why

Feel like you’re constantly wired to your smartphone? You’re not alone. A survey by the global tech company Asurion showed that even while on vacation, Americans check their phones 80 to 300 times a day! With all their fancy apps, notifications of incoming messages and addicting games, smartphones are designed to reel us in.

 

As psychologist Adrian Ward of the University of Texas at Austin explains it, it’s as if your smartphone silently shouts your name at your brain at all times. It’s the reason the survey found that average Americans find it difficult to go without checking their phone every 10 minutes or so. But you don't have to succumb to your phone's siren call. Taking a break from being tethered to your phone is completely doable. It just takes a little practice.