10 steps to overcome smartphone addiction

Most likely, you don’t want to look at the screen every minute at all, you just can’t do it differently. How to regain peace?

Here’s a four-week addiction recovery program developed by Katherine Price, science and health columnist for The New York Times and a former digital addict herself. These are 10 practical tasks, the consecutive implementation of which over the course of one month will help you return to a healthy relationship with your smartphone.

1. Don’t be afraid of reality

At the first stage, you should compare two indicators – the time that you plan to devote to your smartphone, and the time that you actually devote to it. To do this, answer two questions:

• How many times a day do you plan to access your smartphone?
• How much time are you going to spend with your smartphone every day?

Then download the application that determines the time you spend with the gadget. Katherine Price recommends the Moment and Offtime apps, which record the number of times the screen is unlocked and track the total duration of device use.

2. Assess your relationship with your smartphone

Answer the following questions in writing:

• What do you like about a smartphone?
• What do you not like about it?
• What changes in yourself (positive or negative) do you notice when you spend a lot of time with your gadget?

Now imagine that you have already got rid of the addiction.

• What is your ideal relationship with a smartphone?
• What will you do with the time you have after getting rid of addiction?
• Describe how you see your future to explain your goal, and then congratulate yourself on achieving it.

3. Be mindful of your condition

Within 24 hours, determine for yourself those situations when you almost always take your smartphone with you. Also record the time of the first use of the device in the morning and the last use in the evening. Pay attention to the change in body position when using a smartphone and to your emotional state before using it. Finally, track how often you are distracted by your smartphone (SMS, notifications, messages, email, and so on)

4. Take stock and get down to business

An app that tracks how much time you spend on your smartphone (tip #1) may have convinced you that you have an addiction. Now, every time you feel like picking up a gadget, ask yourself three questions:

• Why do I take a smartphone? (Searching for information, sending emails, SMS, tweets, and so on.)
• Why am I taking it right now? (Is it an objective necessity or an emotional impulse?)
• Why shouldn’t I do something else? What could I do instead?

5. Remove social media apps from your smartphone

Think about which social networks distract you the most and remove their icons from your home screen. Remember that you do not permanently delete them and you have other means and ways to access social networks. This is not about a ban, but about the fight against acquired reflexes. So say to yourself rather: “I don’t access social networks using a smartphone” rather than “I should not have an account on social networks.”

6. Opt out of notifications

Being an effective means of distraction and profit, notifications quietly take up a huge part of our time. Don’t let anyone else steal your minutes! Leave only notifications for missed calls and possibly notifications for instant messaging apps and your calendar (events and tasks) and delete the rest. This also applies to email notifications.

7. Smartphones don’t belong in your bedroom.

Now that you’ve changed your smartphone habits so you don’t succumb to temptation, the next step is to change your environment. Let’s start with the bedroom. Make it a rule to remove all gadgets and electronic devices from there in the evenings, including a smartphone. This will help you avoid automaticity when you pick up your smartphone before going to bed and immediately after waking up. Involve other family members in this massive “addiction recovery operation” and convince them not to sleep with their gadgets in their arms anymore. You can even set a fine for “violators”.

8. Gradually expand your space without a smartphone

After the bedroom comes the turn of the dining room and living room – while reading or watching movies. Then comes the time to fight phubbing (phubbing from the English phone – “phone” and snubbing – “neglect”: the habit of being distracted by your smartphone when talking with your interlocutor): get rid of the habit of constantly keeping the device next to you on the table, even during mealtime and, even worse, constantly look into it.

9. Stop, breathe and live here and now

This exercise will help you learn how to pause before picking up your smartphone.

• Stop and stop doing what you are currently doing.
• Breathe in slowly and deeply.
• Live here and now – be fully aware of this moment of your life.

10. Stop using your smartphone for 24 hours

You will spend 24 hours (preferably a weekend – it will be easier for you) without a smartphone or any other electronic device with Internet access. Warn your surroundings in advance that you will be left without communication and it will be impossible for you to get through (you can record a message on an answering machine or set up an automatic e-mail notification). Schedule pleasant activities or meetings to reward yourself for voluntarily giving up using your smartphone and the Internet.

Don’t forget to take stock of your “abstinence” from your smartphone during the weekend. Pay attention to the most difficult and most pleasant moments of parting with a smartphone.