Phone Addiction - The Breaking Addiction Series

[emis]

Here is an excerpt from my blog post on overcoming internet addiction

That's what worked for me

Step by Step Guide to Overcome Smart Phone Addiction
Step 1: Identify Potentially Addictive Apps on Your Phone
It may sound crazy but it's important to DEFINE what apps you really WANT to use on your smart phone.
This takes courage because you have to stop following and follow your own goals and your own agenda instead of being the victim of the mindless algorithm of a tech-company.
In his motivation manifesto, Brendon Burchard phrases it like this.
Let us make this day the day we take back our life's agenda from the grips of conformity and distraction. [...] Let us not forget that our simple efforts and daily triumphs can gather wight and motion to become an unstoppable force toward a focused and free life.
We must take a long, unflinching look at our habit of giving our lives and agendas over to others. We have to say no more often. We have to increase our focus. We have to fight harder to safeguard our time and our dreams and our souls.
Action Step

1. Write down the apps that you want to use on a piece of paper.
2. Rate the addictiveness of these apps on a scale from 1 to 10.

Ask yourself Where you would have to endure significant drawbacks from not using a specific app on your phone?
This could be something like not being able to use google maps in a new city or not using whatsapp when you meet with friends in a new restaurant.
Please be honest with yourself here.


Use These 3 Questions as Guidelines to Decide What Websites and Apps to Use

What's the BEST possible outcome
if I stop using this app?

What's the WORST possible outcome
if I stop using this app?

What's the MOST LIKELY outcome
if I stop using this app?
To give you an example I don't rate my sleep tracker or google maps very addictive. Maybe a 1 or 2 on the scale. For me, it's okay to have them on my phone.
Whatsapp is probably a 7, and Facebook is rated 8, Youtube and my favorite newspaper sites are rated 10.
It will be different for you. In Step One the goal is to raise our awareness and make logical decisions that are in line with our goals. This is best done on paper.
Step 2: Block Everything That Makes You Addicted to the Internet

Action Steps:


1. Delete every app that is potentially addictive from your phone.

2.Download the app Appdetox and add times for apps that you have to use less often but cannot delete completely.

3. Download the app Applock for android to block the play store and your internet browser
If you need to use these apps for professional reasons, use your desktop computer or laptop instead.
If you rated them 7 or higher it's worth to endure even significant drawbacks.
This is about YOUR life. You want to get rid of your internet addiction.
(I'll show you how to cope with these apps and make them less addictive on your computer below).
For example:
Here is a list of of addictive apps that I deleted or blocked on my phone 24/7 using Applock.

• All browsers
• All email clients
• Play Store for new apps
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Skype
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Whatsapp (temporarily)

What I like about Applock is that you can set a complicated password that you cannot remember to unlock the blocked apps and/or settings.
The only addictive app that is still on my mobile phone is Whatsapp because I found it to hard to quit yet because everyone uses it to organise offline activities.
To limit access to WhatsApp I use a 2nd app blocker called "AppDetox" and allow it only for one hour each day.
Then I block access to appdetox with applock.
This is like a 2nd line of defense. When I unlock AppDetox with my password, I'm not tempted to unlock Youtube or my browser in the settings of Applock.
Here are some apps that I still use on my phone:

• Google Maps
• Google Calendar
• A Sleep Tracker
• Amazon Kindle
• Google Drive to access to MP3's & videos

I download all the videos and mp3's/ podcasts that I want to listen to on my desktop computer and place them into my drive folder.
Step 3: Prepare for Emergencies with the Password-Photo-Hack
There might be some rare occasions where you might need a new app or access to the internet. Use the password-photo trick to take advantage of the delay discounting principle before you unlock the internet.
Action Steps:
1. Take a photo of a complicated password
2. Use this password in the AppLock-App
Why take a photo?

This ensures that you cannot simply copy/paste your password and makes it really inconvenient to cheat. That's using Delay Discounting in a very pragmatic and practical way to deal with internet addiction.
Unlocking the additive apps with Applock is too complicated without writing the password down again, yet the photo is always available in your phones gallery.
The 2nd benefit is that it will take you a while to enter the password. So you'll give your prefrontal cortex an additional pause to reconsider your decision.
Side note: After 1,5 years of using this trick I never had to unlock my phone due to an emergency.

Great post,thanks! Trying to find a similar app to Applock for iphone

 

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[A_Random_Guy]

 

[A_Random_Guy]

 

[GoodluckChuck]

I have some tips which I'll type up quickly:

1. Switch off your phone often. Try leaving it in a draw for a few days on and off. Eventually, you realize you don't depend on it that much (unless you await some form of business response etc but even that should have healthy boundaries).
2. Leave your phone at home when you are in nature - forget about taking pictures all the time, more so please stop seeking external approval by posting those pictures on social media.
3. Reduce amount of apps on your phone - understand that almost everything on your phone/ apps etc is commercialized and targeted at you/your time/your attention. Most of it is hardly beneficial to you, unless you cannot see for what it is.
4. Only use apps that are fundamental to your productivity and business eg. use calendar, use some form of contact platform for distant relationships only (for people who live abroad), use contacts app, emails, camera, notepad, - phone is a tool at your disposal, it should not be using you, you should be using it.
5. Value your mental faculties, figure out how to get to that destination without google maps, learn, memorize, wake up, pick up the phone if you need to arrange something, dont rely on texts, observe your surroundings, understand that the phone reduces your attention span and therefore your lifespan - please dont get run over by a bus, your phone is very distracting, it is designed for that purpose. Messages can wait. Switch off instant notifications.
6. Please dont rely on your phone as an alarm - get an old fashioned alarm clock
7. Understand that prolonged use of your phone increases your chance of getting a cancer due to radiation
8. Never multitask - if you use your phone, only use your phone. Dont search google/social media aimlessly when bored- most of blogs and articles on google these days are written by people who are after your attention/business, most of them are hardly experts on a given field. Find authentic (original source) material on a given issue and learn from it /read it in your own time. Dont allow someone else to shape your way of thinking via phone/internet ( you can tell I am sick of online marketing!), use your intellect to find the original source/expert, read and consider it carefully and then conclude things for yourself.
9. Please dont drive/walk and use your phone at the same time (as above 8). Please dont use your phone when in another person's company. When you are with a friend/gf/bf/significant other, please dont, dont, dont, kill the atmosphere - value that person's time. Besides, if you dont know how to describe something (and you have to "show it" or "look it up") it means you dont know it well enough, it means you have been dumbed down and need to learn more.
10. FOR MEN: Dont carry your phone in your trouser pockets all the time (if you want to have children some day that is), this applies to sleeping near the phone - never sleep in the same room as your phone!!

Just a few tips there based on what I know having spoken to people who have worked in the (smart) phone industry.... (!)

This should tell you something; people who have designed and capitalised on smartphones hardly use them. Especially they dont use them around young children (let alone allow the children themselves to use them), that privilege my friends is left to the uninformed and wilfully ignorant masses.

This should be taught in middle schools.

 

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[Walterbl]

Batch your phone calls/SMS. Set up a time when you are available and do all of your calls at once instead of calling/texting people multiple times during the day.

 

[A_Random_Guy]

 

[A_Random_Guy]

 

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[A_Random_Guy]

Sorry for not posting daily. I've been saving ss daily though.

 

[andyhaus44]

I've turned off all of my notifications, as well as grayscaled my phone but not touching my phone for the first hour in the morning has been the biggest help of all. This video is pure gold!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoceNpQNytI&t=46s&ab_channel=VideoAdvice

 

[andyhaus44]

Anyone interested in starting this back up again?

 

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[Aristoss]

Yes!

 

[mikecarlooch]

if you dont know why you're on the phone or on your computer - you should be very suspicious.