If you are like most people, you don't like to admit that you have a smartphone addiction. We bet you think you can stay away from your smartphone without any worries, but you have been too hesitant to try it out?
Don't fret, it is quite normal to think you have a healthier relationship with your smartphone compared to your peers, but to some extent we are all in the same boat. For the time being let’s forget that addictive-ness of the phones and try to take steps that can lessen our dependence on our phones, steps that will help us look at our smartphones less often.
- Manage Your Notifications – Notifications are the best and the worst thing to happen to mankind. While they are good to remind us of important events, they have become the instrument that constantly drives us towards our phones. You can set it so that some of the less important apps like shopping apps or music streaming apps don’t send you useless notifications.
Do this on an Android phone by following these steps: Click Settings > Apps > Click on the App for which you want to stop notifications > Then uncheck the box labelled “Show notifications” below Force Stop.
We are sure you might be part of some WhatsApp group where people forward tons of things every minute that you might not be interested in and leaving that group may seem rude. To stop the notifications from a particular group or person:
Click on their chat > Click the menu button on the top right > Press “Mute”. You will no longer receive notifications for the messages you receive from them.
- Make Bookmarking Your New Best Friend – Do you know the reason most websites come up with an app these days? It is to keep you hooked to their service through a dedicated channel which is easily accessible with just a few clicks. Indirectly apps become a convenient manner due to which we un-knowingly turn into smartphone addicts.
We suggest uninstalling some apps and bookmarking these website’s homepages from your browser. Not only does it save storage space and your phones RAM, it offers the same experience as most websites today work similar to their apps.
For experimentation, try deleting the Facebook app and browse your account through your browser. You will understand that it is almost the same experience, albeit without the crutch of an app which can be addictive.
- Be In The Habit of Turning Off Your Phone – Whether it is on rare occasions when you are on a vacation or a frequent circumstance like when you are in a movie theatre or a daily activity before you sleep. You must give your phone a rest for it to give you some rest. Turning off the phone has many other benefits like freeing up the phone memory so it performs better next time.
Don’t worry most smartphone alarms work even if the phone is switched-off. Try it for yourself tonight.
- Go Back In Time – A rather extreme yet effective way of ditching your smartphone is going back to old technologies. Like an old-school phone with buttons that is only good for making and receiving calls (maybe some MP3 playback too perhaps). It is a liberating sensation to go back to simplicity with the old-generation of non-touch screen phones.
In addition to that if you rely heavily on your phone for checking time and date, you would be better served by going back to classic method of a wrist-watch. Its not just good for your eyes but for lifestyle too.