What was once a tool to simply be in touch when on the move, slowly and surely became a full-time addiction? So much, that now there is a technical name for those who can’t stay a few feet away from their phones over some time.
What makes this even more surprising is the fact that we allowed smartphones with full conscious thought to take over our lives, our time, and priority over our safety. This behavior may make one amazed at the extent to which we have addicted ourselves to smartphones. The need of the hour is that we track the time we spend with our phones, limit their usage, and reconnect with the real world. Moreover, seeing everyone go places will only make you pity yourself. Because that’s what human nature is all about. Keeping such things in mind, it is time that we check ourselves for excessive smartphone usage.
How Does Smartphone Addiction Affect Us?
Read the statistics to know how strongly we are attached to our smartphones: –
- Most persons can’t stay longer than 3 minutes without interacting with technology
- 60% of teen users text after bedtime and during their class
- 58% professionals message while they’re in the board meeting
Observe the crowd at a school play, on the beach, at a movie and even at a funeral. You’ll find most of the people sneaking into their smartphones as soon as they get time. It’s difficult for them to get along without their mobile devices. Again, message alerts and ringtones are sirens that pull them back to their world with smartphones irrespective of the place.
Professor Leslie Parlow of Harvard Business School says, “Let’s face it, when that phone buzzes, few of us have the mental fortitude to ignore it”. Mr. Parlow conducted a study that included over 1600 professionals. He found out the following: –
- 70% of the candidates checked their smartphones as soon as they woke up.
- 48% of them check the phone even at weekends
- 51% of them check their phones constantly when they were at vacation
- 44% of professionals accepted that they will face terrible anxiety if their phone is lost and they aren’t able to replace it within a week.
You might say that you rather spend time on smartphones checking your emails, scrolling Facebook news, or doing something more substantial. Well, you may not be wasting your time playing traffic rider or candy crush, but it takes more than 20 minutes to gain the same level of concentration to do the same work after an interruption. And if your smartphone interrupts every 10 minutes, just calculate the amount of productive time you’ve lost in one day?
Tips to Check Smartphone Usage
Experts believe that creating regulations about devices and following them can help you create healthy relationships with smartphones. You will be more focused on your life whether at work or play.
After all, interacting with your phone when you are in a board meeting or in front of clients doesn’t help your business relationships. Moreover, it’s inappropriate to ignore people because of phone buzzes.
Here are some tips that can limit phone usage:
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Restrict Smartphone Usage
It’s not necessary to use your smartphone while you are attending a board meeting or while you are driving. Moreover, it’s not necessary to pick them up as soon as you wake up or when you are on your bed to sleep. It’s recommended to switch off the mobile data service to stop unnecessary notifications. And if possible, just switch off the mobile phone. From now onwards, you’ll have quality time with your friends and family.
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Set priority
Keep in mind that work is very important and you need to completely focus while you work. As discussed above, constant distractions can tremendously affect your productive hours, turning yourself into an unproductive person, which you are not. The above rule should be set according to your priorities and preferences. Therefore, it’s very important to prioritize your work and schedule your day accordingly. Switching your data service off or setting your phone on airplane mode until the break time helps you focus more on productive things.
Intimacy does matter in life. Your family and friends deserve your time more than anyone. You can use the technology to spend quality time with them.
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Use an alarm Clock
We usually use our phones to set alarms in the morning. Hence, we grab our phones to turn off the alarm but eventually end up checking out notifications. And we’ve lost the battle. Therefore, it’s better to use a real alarm clock rather than setting up alarms on the phone.
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Use Social Fever- Fight Smartphone Addiction!
Social Fever is the perfect solution for smartphone addiction. This all-in-one phone usage tracker for Android smartphones helps you maintain a well-balanced life that includes both real life and digital aspects. Using an app to break smartphone addiction may seem irrational, but we should remember it’s we and not the technology that has a problem. On the contrary, with App usage tracker, alert notifications and features dedicated to eye and ear health, and many more Social Fever can help you beat smartphone addiction.
The app has an interactive UI, where you can find options like time tracking for addictive apps, and a weekly report of your app usage. Click on the button below to download the Social Fever app now. It is also compatible with the latest Android OS.
Try it out now and tell us your feedback in the comments section below. And for more fresh tech updates, tricks, solutions, follow WeTheGeek on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.