These addiction statistics are quite overwhelming:
- The typical cell phone user touches his or her phone 2,617 times every day. 2,617 times!
- Most people, on average, spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones each day.
- Half of all phone pickups happen within 3 minutes of a previous one.
And the impact of this usage is staggering:
- Reducing the quality of conversations.
- Adversely impacting short-term memory and problem solving.
- Negatively affecting our sleep patterns.
- Resulting in more negativity, distress, and less emotional recovery in young children.
- Increasing obesity.
- And the positive correlation between smartphone addiction and depression is alarming.
You would think, given the statistics and what we know to be true about cell phone usage, it would be easy to put down and walk away. But I can attest the technology addiction struggle is real.
As a parent of two who makes his living online in this modern world, I know full-well the addictive nature of mobile devices and how great the internal battle is to harness the benefits of our smartphones without falling prey to its intentionally addictive design.
Nor do I miss the ironic fact that many of you are reading this very article on your phone.
Phones are good and helpful… you are able to read this article right now because of it. But we know all too well they also have the potential to become a negative presence in our life if we allow them.
So how do we keep cell phone usage in proper alignment with our lives? What are some tools or ideas to help us cut down on our cell phone usage?
Here is a list of seven I have used myself or learned from others:
7 Proven Ways to Break Your Cell Phone Addiction
1. Set aside one day/week.
This is, by far, the most common approach I see among people who have taken intentional steps to curb their cell phone habit nowadays. But I credit Tammy Strobel for being the first person I heard talk about it—almost ten years ago. Choose one day each week (usually a Saturday and Sunday) and set your phone aside. That’s it, make a habit of it.
2. Use a 30-Day Experiment to reset your usage.
For me personally, this has been the most helpful way to break my cell phone habit. My cell phone use, when not intentionally limited, tends to take over more and more of my free time. It happens unintentionally and quietly—I don’t even seem to notice it happening.
Seven years ago, I gave up my smartphone for Lent and used it only for calling and texting (no other apps allowed—even maps and photos). It was a 40-day period of reset that helped me align my usage with more important pursuits in life. Since that first experiment, I have used the 30-day reset two additional times—each with great success.
3. Use apps to bolster self-control.
There are apps for almost every problem in life. In fact, there are even some wonderful apps built to help us limit our time on our devices. Here are some of my favorites:
Space. Set goals and track your daily progress to manage your habits.
Forest. ($1.99) Stay focused, be present. Forest is a beautifully designed app that brings gamification to productivity and results in real trees being planted based on your personal phone use habits.
Moment. Through short, daily exercises, Moment helps you use your phone in a healthy way.
Flipd. Lock away distracting apps for complete focus.
Screentime. Set daily usage limits on your phone or specific apps.
4. Don’t charge your phone near your bed.
Want to know the best way to keep your kids off their phones too much? Don’t allow them to charge their phones in their bedroom.
Want to know a great way to keep yourself off your phone? Don’t charge it in your bedroom.
Many of the negative effects of overuse (poor sleep, hindered communication and intimacy) can be eliminated by keeping your cell phone out of your bedroom. As with many of the items on this list, this is a principle I’ve found personally helpful.
5. Put your phone away when you walk in the door.
Christopher Mims writes a weekly technology column for The Wall Street Journal—a job that certainly requires the use of tech on a consistent basis. His simple and proven way to keep life in healthy balance with his cell phone is to put it in a kitchen cabinet at the end of the workday. In his words, “The more you physically remove the phone, the more you can build a habit of having some ability to ignore it when it’s on your person.”
When you finish your day of work, put your phone in a drawer or cabinet. This is a helpful practice for all people, but I think it is especially important if you have kids or a spouse at home in need of our undivided attention.
6. Change your phone settings.
Among the most often suggested ideas for reducing cell phone usage, you find tips and tricks by simply changing the settings on your phone.
The most common suggested ideas:
- Turn off notifications
- Set screen to black-and-white
- Remove distraction-based apps from your home screen
- Set a longer passcode
- Use airplane mode
- Turn on do not disturb
In my opinion, turning off notifications is something everyone should do regardless of how habitual their cell phone use is. Just because someone in the world wants to text you, email you, or tag you in a post on Facebook doesn’t mean they deserve your attention. My cell phone screen is not currently set to grayscale, but I have found that setting helpful in the past.
7. Put a hairband around your phone.
In one of the most thoughtful personal stories I’ve ever read on how to overcome cell phone addiction, Brad Soroka recommends placing a hairband around your cell phone. When placed in the middle of the phone, the hairband allows users to answer phone calls easily, but makes other uses of the phone more difficult (including simple texting).
In his words, “Every time you want to use your phone, this brings about a mindfulness exercise and makes you ask ‘what is my intention?’ If you really want to use the phone, set your intention for why, and remove the hair band.”
The hairband trick is not about making your phone impossible to use. The practice is about bringing greater mindfulness to each specific use of it… as opposed to mindlessly unlocking your phone every 3 minutes.
When used as a collection of tools to improve my work, health, parenting, and life, cell phones are wonderful and bring countless benefits. But when used mindlessly and unintentionally, they become a distraction from the things in life that matter most—in addition to the negative effects listed above.
Learning how to use our smartphones effectively may be one of the most important life skills any of us can learn.
About Joshua Becker
I battle with this every day, to the point that it diverts me from the quality time I could be going through with my children and kid, do they notice it. Children are so insightful. At the point when they see me on my telephone, they become pulled back and annoyed with me. Love placing your telephone in a cabinet when you return home.
Hi Joshua, thank you for the great tips.
I find it helps when I just delete the apps completely off my phone. The clutter that one can create digitally becomes a big burden to the mind.
I agree that we should all learn how to use these devices effectively and take more responsibility on our usage. Cheers.
The upsides of other people’s smart phone addiction for non smart phone addicts are : quieter crowded places.
Train travel is quiet now, most travellers are attending quietly to their phones, whereas in the past they were all talking loudly into them. I can read my book or just relax.
Restaurants are quieter too, I can have a conversation with my husband and hear his reply.
This is so great. I struggle with this daily, to the point that it distracts me from quality time I could be spending with my kids, and boy, do they notice it. Kids are so perceptive. When they see me on my phone, they become withdrawn and upset with me. Love the idea of putting your phone in a drawer when you get home. I would be interested also do see the research on how cell phone usage contributes to depression. I completely believe it, I would just like to know how. Love your blog, by the way. Long-time reader but just now got up the nerve to comment :)
Why you need a cell phone, first of all? Beacuse you can do everything on your compurter that managed by the cell phone other than calls. For calling you just need a bar mobile phone which has no features other than calling or sending sms.
My husband and I took the the Internet and anything to do with it, off our phone. Wifi off. Put on airplane mode. We can text and phone and send a pic we take on our phones to others. They can send us pics taken with their phone. That’s it.
Anything else we use our iPads for and since we leave our iPads at home when we go out, that doesn’t get a lot if usage. Mine gets used at night. I don’t own a laptop or computer. I check news and blogs & I have very few since I decluttered. It has made a difference.
If you need all that for work purposes I understand but why have it if you don’t. Get your books at a library. Remember how much fun that was. Try to visit in person, friends and family. Reconnect with the real world. Go shopping in a real store. Stop so much online shopping. Life is Out There! Get re-acquainted.
I have a 10 year old flip phone. And I’m 40 years old with three kids… it functions for making calls and sending an emergency text if I have to.
You can easily buy new flip phones. Cheaper too. l love mine.
Great for children, stops them getting addicted, but still in contact.
I have one, with big real buttons a screen, easy user interface.
It also takes photos and texts.
This is a good article.
Thank you,
Shelly
I definitely needed this:)
Love the specific, little tweaks we can make to reign in cell phone usage and actually make it work for us!
My takeaways: start checking out real paper books from the library again, be done with the phone by a certain time in the evening, and get an old-fashioned alarm clock to replace our phones by the bed.
I agree. This is what I do. I settle into my bedroom with a book or magazine around 8 p.m. each night. While I do have my phone with me it’s tuned to the Rainy Mood app to drown out the city noise while I read and the sound helps me relax, but I turn my phone face down and don’t check it even if it pings. Most nights I start to doze off by 9:45 p.m. and then I know it’s time to put my phone away, still unchecked, in the living room and get tucked in for sleep. Even though I do have an alarm clock I often wake just before it goes off at 6 a.m. after a good nights sleep.
very sad commentary that we are having to make rules for ourselves on how to break an addiction such as a cell phone. I am 73 and never had one, don’t need one and will not follow the masses in their quest to always “be there”. They began as a novelty, became an addiction, and now people must learn how to control this new addiction. Very sad.
Thanks for the comment Carl. I would disagree that cell phones began as a novelty. They began (and continue to function) as tools for productivity and connectivity.
I have chosen not to have my email on my phone. They, can be 200 or more daily so they go to my desktop.
I have limited SM so I don’t have it (meaning FB mainly) on the phone.
And, I don’t play games. I try to have book around so I have something to read. I’m not into the social one-upmanship of talking about which level I’m on while playing a solitary game to people.
Speaking of books, I’m not fond of electronic ones (flipping the pages is nails on a blackboard for me).
My husband, Mr. I write computer code, does not have a cell phone as he says they are for the convenience of others. What did people do before they existed? He was called at home or at work. And he could call back at his convenience.* The very few times he has needed one, usually someone is around that will allow him to make a call.
* I agree with him on this: a lot of people sound really mad if you don’t answer your phone right away. I CALLED you and YOU DIDN’T answer!
I’m with you Abby. I use mine as a phone. I also receive texts, but no games, no emails and no FB. Oh the camera is probably my biggest offense. But I am of a generation that didn’t grow up with cell phones. Seeing families in restaurants not talking makes me sad. Love your husband’s attitude.
Thanks for a needed reminder. Our use of media has definitely become a substitute for real interactions. So sad to see couples at a restaurant waiting for their meal, heads down, both on their phones with no conversation happening. Then they will wonder why they are drifting apart.
Phone use in restaurants or while shopping for groceries: left brain disorder is lacking critical thinking skills, reasoning and logic. Probably genetic, or the left brain is dead air, yet so many have it. If eating out with anyone I know, they never use their phone during that time.
I’ve never liked cell phones, but I work as an Executive Assistant to two Co-Presidents so my phone is always on and close by. Prior to landing this job, I used to come home from work, turn my cell phone off, and leave it in my purse. I would only turn it back on again the next morning when I arrived at work again. I can’t do that now because my job doesn’t allow me to. If my bosses need me after-hours, they’ll text me and expect me to respond. I hate it. I’d love to be able to go back to my old cell phone habits.
Maybe you can discuss with your bosses the need for down time. Maybe you turn it off at 8 pm and back on at 8 am. Unless you are being compensated for 24/7 some consideration should be acceptable. Good luck!
These are amazing tips! I used to put a little pebble or sea shell on top of my phone, and when I was forced to remove it to open my phone it really brought to light how often I was absentmindedly checking it..
Recently my Instagram app on my phone stopped working (I’ve got a very old version of Android), and when my first gut reaction was relief I knew there was no going back.
Dee
Great ideas, Joshua – love all you’re about. Another option of course, is not having a phone…
I rarely use the flip phone, have a chrome book for emailing and don’t like to talk on any phone unless necessary for appointments, getgting some info., or calling about when I’ll be home.. Phones stay off on week ends and have for many yrs. now retired, we keep the habit. I don’t take personal calls until mid afternoon weekdays. Mornings I get things done, errands. Unless it’s a business type call, I ignore calls going to voice.
That’s great Laura Ann, I don’t have a smart phone either. Flip phone ringer is off in the morning and evenings.