How I'm battling my smartphone-addiction and how you can do it too!
My experiences
From experiences in the past I know I tend to get hooked really fast. When I was young I used to play video games for hours and hours. With the rise of the smartphone, I, like so many others, fell prey to the addictiveness of apps and games on this device that’s always within reach.
I've played thousands of levels of Candy Crush, played Clash Royale until all my cards were max-level and spend hours and hours on the many different 'social media' apps craving for the dopamine triggers and having FOMO (Fear of missing out).
Hours and hours of precious time I have 'wasted' with a phone in my hand, watching my screen. When I look back at it, I find it rather sad.
But for us humans, it’s extremely difficult to resist the intentionally addictiveness of smartphone apps and games. The developers of these apps and games know the tricks to get you addicted and use it to keep you using their app as long as possible, so they make more money.
In the past, I made several attempts to cut back on my smartphone usage, but it never lasted very long. Until last year. In July 2024, I created a blog about my attempt to do a Dopamine Detox after I found myself doomscrolling in YouTube shorts many times.
I uninstalled all my 'unneccessary' and time wasting apps to decrease my smartphone time.
One year later
Now, more than 1 year later, I can conclude that I've really benefitted my 'detox'. I suddenly had more time left in a day to do other things I like. For instance, I've picked up reading books again. In the past year I've read over 20 books, which is probably more than I ever have done in a year.
But there is not only positive news. I did have a kind of a setback. In the past year I became a bit more active on Hive. I started the @topcomment initiative and started microblogging on Snaps. This all was easily accessible on my phone. Since the curation for @topcomment is done via Discord I also installed that app. This immediately gave me access to all other Hive Discord Servers I'm in which slowly started to take up more time. My smart phone usage went up again and I frequently checked my accounts to see if I had replies or upvotes; Welcome back dopamine 🫨
The next phase...
After noticing this fallback I decided to tighten the screws again. I removed the Discord app and decided to do all my curations and commenting from my laptop. I now take some time during the day to start up my laptop for this. This way it’s a more mindful choice to do so.
I also logged out my Hive accounts from my browser apps. I do have the Keychain app installed, because I sometimes do want to post a Snap. But I’ll have to be careful not to keep scrolling endlessly through the snaps.
I've seen my smartphone usage drop again in the week after doing this and it feels good. It feels like I'm back in control again!
Controlling your smartphone addiction
How can you control your smartphone addiction, that's the question. I've tried many things in the past. Some worked quite well for me, some didn't. I need to say that it really is quite hard in modern times where the app developers whose aim is to make and keep you addicted, to break loose from it.
But, as you have read above, I'm managing it quite well at the moment.
In the following part of this blog I'll tell you what I've tried and what did and didn't work for me.
Hopefully you can use this information to get back in control too.
Are you addicted?
If you don't admit you have a problem, you won't see the need to change your habits. I think an enormous amount of people is addicted to their smartphones. I was travelling by train yesterday and I could count the number of people that didn't look at their phone on one hand. And there were a lot of people.
If you don't know if you have a smartphone addiction, then answer the following questions:
Do you...
- unlock your phone and check your messages right after waking up?
- use your phone in bed, just before sleeping?
- feel a bit nervous when you don't have your phone on you?
- grab your phone when you're bored?
- have a screen time of more than 2 hours a day?
- use your phone while doing other stuff like walking, cycling, eating?
- use your phone during social activities?
- feel the urge to open notifications you see when you unlock your phone?
- reply to incoming messages immediately?
- unlock your phone 50+ times a day?
The more times you answered YES to the questions above, the more chance you are a smartphone addict.
And it is not a shame. But you can do something about it. Read on and learn!
Use an app!
There are many apps in the stores that promise you to help you reduce your smartphone usage. I've installed dozens of them, but it didn't help me. I also find using a smartphone app to control your smartphone addiction is a bit weird.
Some apps lock your phone, or a list of apps at certain times or make it harder for you to unlock your phone. I found that last thing rather annoying, especially the times that I really did needed to use my phone. The motivational intentions of apps that reward you with avatars or growing a forest for focus time didn't really work for me either.
These apps really didn't work for me. Maybe they do for you.
If they don't, read on for some things that did help me spending less time on my phone!
My tips
First of all, admit you have a problem and you want to do something about it.
If that is out of the way, you can start doing the following.
Tip 1: Make your phone boring!
Make your phone less attractive for you. Remove all the games and unnecessary apps. Especially socials media apps! Maybe even remove your browser, or at least log out all accounts that might distract you.
You can also use profiles (that's how it's called on Android). I have a profile that sets my smartphone to black and white mode after 10:30 in the evening. This makes it less attractive to use. You can also make this your default if you like.
Tip 2: Check your usage
Most smartphones keep track of all kinds of stats from your phone usage. You can see how much you have used your phone, and how much time per app. You can also see how many times you have unlocked your phone during the day. Be aware that looking at these stats might shock you 😀
I have also configured a 'Screentime' widget from the Digital Wellbeing tools on Android. This will show me how much I have spent on my phone when I unlock it. You can also configure a daily goal. It might be motivating to stay under the goal you set. I've set it to 1,5 hours now, which might sound much, but I've been able to stay way under it in the last week.
Tip 3: Disable all notifications!
Turn off all your notification! Yes, all of them! No sound, no vibrations, no lights! All these notifications trigger your brain to grab your phone. And what messages are that important that you need to see them right away?
For me that are only phone calls from my family. I've told them that I don't regularly check my messages anymore, so that when they really need my, they have to call.
Yes, you can check for new messages, but let you be the one to decide when you want to do this. You can also make an agreement with yourself that you only unlock your phone when you need or want to do something. That can be checking for new messages, but don't do it too frequently.
You can also lower the frequency. Check it every hour first. You'll soon see you haven't really missed that manu important things. Then increase the time in between checking. I now check my whatsapp messages about 4 or 5 times a day and I haven't missed any important things yet, so I might just check even fewer times.
Beware that when you check the thing you unlocked your phone for, you're not doing a round of checks on other apps and messages as well.
Tip 4: Put your phone away!
This is a simple one. Just put your phone away. I'm kind of a control freak, so I always carry my phone and keys everywhere I go. Well, carried, because more and more I put my phone away. At work I often have it on the desk and in my home I often also don't carry it with me anymore. Not having your phone within reach does decrease the number of times you use the phone.
When I started doing this I often reached for my pocket where I didn't find my phone, but I'm getting more used to it now. And it really gives peace of mind.
Conclusion
As I mentioned in the blog I've had my ups and downs with my attempts of reducing my smartphone usage, but I've really made some nice steps.
It not only has given me a lot of extra time to spend on things I like, but also has made me more mindful. Not having a smarthone distracting makes you experience things in a more mindful way.
Although I might have some setbacks again, I do think I will be able to control my addiction with the aforementioned tips. I hope you can too!
What about you?
Are you addicted to your smartphone too? Did you answer yes to many of the questions earlier in the blog? Do you want to do anything about it? Or have you also succesfully taken back control of your time by decreasing your smartphone usage? Do you have any additional tips how people can conquer their smartphone addiction.
Please let me know your experiences in the comments!
Friendlymoose
I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
Check out my projects below!
My Hive Projects
I am involved in several projects on Hive that support communities, engagement and creativity. If you are interested, feel free to have a look and join in:
Hive Shark Tank Community Where Hive projects pitch their ideas and investors can support them
#hiveproject Supporting Hive projects with upvotes
Topcomment A Comment Curation Service to reward engagemant on Hive
Hive Photography Contests A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive.
Friendlymoose Photo Contest My own weekly Photography Contest
Hive Photographer Discord Server for all Hive Photographers
Hive Cycling Community For sharing anything that has to do with cycling
The ability to control the usage of our phone is very important, however there are some people with roles that made it almost nearly impossible for them to do.
But for others a clarion call to strategic means of planning our activities in such that it can be timed to enable us control the usage of our phone 📱
But for me, my weekly report on my Samsung phone concerning my phones usage early indicates that it has increased especially since I joined Hive, I am taking notice of the reports and working on how to manage it in other not to affect work schedules 🙃 😅
Thank you for sharing the tips
You're welcome. It's good to keep an eye on it.
Guilty! I'm going to put my hand up and admit it.
That said, I avoid touching my phone until I've had breakfast, always leave my phone downstairs, and never take it to my room unless I need a triple alarm to wake up in the morning.
I'm going to checkout the screen time widget thing because I do need to be told how much time I'm spending on my phone and try to cut done. Does it give stats by app, because I'm learning Spanish at the moment and don't mind spending more time on the app, but maybe n ed to cut back on others.
Thanks for the wake up call!
I'm using it as my alarm, so it is right next to my bed. But I like to have it there in case something happens with my family and they call in the night.
But I used to check some messages 1st thing in the morning. I stopped doing that.
Touching it after breakfast is a good idea.
The Screen Time widget on Android has a breakdown in apps.
Do you use Duolingo? Duolingo can be played from a browser too.
the main reason why i need to have the phone on me is because it alerts me if the sugar level of wife is getting to low and i need to act on it . the other reason is that i control my domotica with it in the house and my photo camera ;)
There are some things where you need your phone for nowadays or where it comes in handy. I do have domotica and I also use my phone to pay and have some membership cards in it. But I only use those when I need to and only for a very short time.
yeah can't go anywhere these days without your banking app , what will be the next step ..
I too one of those who don't admit that they were addicted to smartphone, but yesterday's incident made me realise that I'm. Yesterday my sim network was down for almost two or three hours, in that time my urge to use the phone was so overwhelming that I get easily irritated on small things that doesn't even matter to me before. Then I saw your post today and realized this is a thing. Thanks for the informative post. I will try to follow this tips.
Oh, that must have been an eye opener. A smartphone without an internet connection is fairly useless.
I hope the tips will help you.
Haha. Really?
Yeah, if I'm not sitting at the PC, I have my phone.
But my smart-phone addiction led me to read your post! :)
This is a sign 😉
I wonder how many people have less screen time than this right now. My screen time is probably a bit more than this, and I don't consider myself someone who spends too much time on my phone. There are people around me who have 8 hours of screen time. That's crazy...