Concentration

Concentration

Spending too much time on your
phone? Here’s how you can minimize
it!

Smartphones have become an essential part of our life. They have made our lives easier as
we can get many benefits and services from the comfort of our homes. These include
meeting new people over social media, entertainment, online shopping, and many more.
However, too much dependency on the internet and smartphones can give rise to physical
and mental ailments, which might hamper our daily activities.

Psychology professor and author of The Distracted Mind Larry Rosen told CNBC in 2018 that
on average, people check the notifications on their phones every 15 minutes. Many
smartphone users have developed anxiety that makes them think that they are missing out
if they don’t regularly check on these notifications.

Too much dependence on the internet and smartphones interferes with our ability to focus.
We become less patient to read one article in detail and keep looking for a lot of things
simultaneously. Several studies have shown that spending too much time on social media
can make people negative minded, as they often compare themselves with other users.

Physical ailments resulting from over-dependence on smartphones include eye strain, lack
of sleep, restlessness, neck pain and male infertility.
It is very well believed and accepted that every problem has a solution; so does smartphone
addiction! Here is a list of measures you can opt for to minimize smartphone usage.

Make a schedule for yourself

Making a disciplined schedule is essential and helps us increase our work efficiency.
Maintaining a program can be straining in the beginning, but you are sure to see positive
results in the long term!

Set yourself a fixed duration for every activity, including the usage of smartphones. You can
dedicate a specified period, say one or two hours daily, to browsing through social media.
You can also set aside only a few hours for online gaming for relaxation. You can set timers
and reminders to curb the total time spent.

To avoid anxiety, you can let your family members and friends know that you won’t be
responding as often as you did.

Turn off push notifications for entertainment-related apps

Push notifications, especially from social media applications like Facebook and Instagram,
often distract a lot. However, it is not necessary to keep track of everything happening on
these platforms!

Notifications on the number of likes and comments on our posts prompt us to open them.
As a result, we keep spending more and more time on these apps. Also, notifications from
OTT (over-the-top) channels and YouTube prompts us to click on them and watch the
content, making us spend more time on these platforms.

Turning off these apps' push notifications will help us reduce the time we spend on the
internet and smartphones.

Spend some days without social media, OTT and gaming

This might sound impossible, but a halt in our daily activities breaks our daily activities;
suitable? Often, you can deactivate your social media handles and uninstall the apps.
Remove the OTT and online gaming apps for about 20 to 30 days at a stretch. Some call it
social media detoxification.

While away from online entertainment, spend some quality time in in-person conversations
with your family members and friends. Engage into reading books or your favorite hobbies
like cooking, gardening, indoor and outdoor games or listening to music. Take care of your
health.
A few breaks like these will help minimize your smartphone usage and help you increase
your work efficiency, develop better communication and interpersonal skills and improve
your focus.

Remove distracting apps from your home screen

Many smartphone users subconsciously get engaged in some particular apps' content and
features. Keeping these apps on our home screens prompts us to click on them whenever
we see them.

Removing these apps, mainly social media and gaming apps, from your home screens will
reduce your smartphone usage. The fewer you see these apps, the better it will be for
achieving the goal of minimizing smartphone usage. Deleting social media apps and using
your smartphone’s browsers instead to use them is one good idea to curb your usage, as
apps are more convenient than smartphone browsers.

Keep those apps on your home screen that provide educational content, such as reading
and learning new things. This will enrich your mind and help you in learning new skills.

Keep your device away from your bed

If your smartphone is always kept near your bed, there is a high chance that it is the first
thing you see after waking up and the last thing to see before going to sleep. After a tiring
day, we surf the internet in our leisure time and often lose count of the hours we spend
with the smartphone. Keeping them away from your bed makes you give more priority to
your sleep, which is more important for your health.

Progress must always be kept on track. Writing them down in your diary gives you a sense of
satisfaction with your achievement. Make regular notes on how successfully you have
minimized your smartphone usage. This habit and your consistency in efforts will surely give
positive results.

FAQs

How can I decrease my phone usage?
Make a fixed schedule of daily usage, turn off push notifications, remove distracting apps
from the home screen and don’t keep your phone near your bed.

How much is screen time healthy?
Health experts say screen time should be less than two hours daily.

Why are we addicted to our phones?
Since smartphones are regularly updated with new features, users are glued to them. These
features make us happy and help release dopamine from our brains. Thus, we get more
addicted to our smartphones.

How screen time affects your brain?
A 2018 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study shows that children who spent more than
two hours a day on the internet scored lower on thinking and language tests.

What are the symptoms of too much screen time?
The symptoms are headache, itching in the eyes, sleep issues, lack of concentration,
tantrums and issues with problem-solving.