Summary

The author describes their journey from excessive phone usage to a significantly reduced and healthier engagement, detailing the steps taken to curb their phone addiction.

Abstract

The article outlines the author's struggle with phone addiction, spending up to 9 hours a day on their device, primarily on games, social media, and news. Recognizing the negative impact on their well-being, the author implemented a series of measures to reduce their screen time. These included deleting unnecessary apps, simplifying the home screen, setting time limits on app usage, establishing an overall time limit for non-essential apps, and making the phone display black and white to reduce its appeal. The author emphasizes the positive outcomes of these changes, such as improved focus, reduced stress, and better mental health.

Opinions

The author believes that excessive phone use can lead to headaches, decreased attention, shortness of temper, sleep disorders, and depression.
They consider the constant barrage of push notifications from apps as an attention-grabbing tactic that contributes to phone addiction.
The author values direct communication with friends and family and therefore does not limit messaging and communication apps.
They suggest that making the phone interface less colorful and appealing can effectively reduce usage.
The author acknowledges the benefits of smartphones in modern culture but stresses the importance of managing phone consumption for mental health and productivity.
They advocate for others to assess and adjust their phone usage to experience the improvements they have.

I Spent 9 Hours a Day Stuck to My Phone. Now Only 2. Here’s how.

I was addicted to my phone. I never went a minute without it. Now that’s changed dramatically, and I’m happier because of it.

A large amount of phone consumption, can lead to a multitude of problems. “They may cause headaches, decreased attention, shortness of temper, sleep disorders and depression” according to the FCC.

I used to spend 9 hours a day on my phone, now I have reduced it to 2 hours. And I’m so thankful for it, I feel better, more focused and less stressed because of it.

The major consumption points on iPhone usage were games, social media followed by news. Each and every app was allowed to send me push notifications, and I used an extra battery pack so my phone wouldn’t run out of charge. Now that I’m writing this down, I feel kind of ridiculous. But this was the life I lived, an addiction to my phone.

The extreme drop from 9 hours to 2 hours of phone consumption was a process which took time and multiple steps. This is how I did it.

1 | Delete Apps

I deleted all apps that I wasn’t using on a daily basis. Doing this, made my phone less hectic and reduced the amount of notifications dramatically, as lots of apps have this annoying feature which is sending you notifications in the desperate hope that you then launch the app.

This didn’t result in me using my phone less, however, it did result in me looking at it less often; as my phone wasn’t buzzing continuously like it used to. It allowed the first step to be minor and had the effect of me not constantly check up in a truly FOMO fashion.

2 | Clean Home Screen

A home screen is filled from one corner to the next with apps. Each screaming for your attention with colours, push notifications and all other attention-grabbing methods known. Yet if we’re realistic one hardly ever uses all apps. Especially not often enough to warrant us looking at them each time we open our phones.

So I deleted all my apps off of my home screen. All that’s left are following apps: Phone, Messages and Whatsapp. Once again the three apps which are actually used for communication between friends. All the other apps, I search for by swiping up on the home screen. Doing this, creates one extra step to open apps, yet keeps the phone clean and distraction free; as the impulse to open an app isn’t existant anymore.

3 | Time Limits

iOS allows one to create time limits for each and every app. I look through my app usage statistics. (iOS: Settings > Screen Time > Instagram) (Android: Settings > Digital Wellbeing > Select App > Click Hourglass Symbol next to it)

Each app that I used a lot daily, I would set my time limit to half of my average use. These limits, however, didn’t include messages, Whatsapp, Facetime and Phone. This is because I am of the opinion that apps to communicate with your friends shouldn’t be limited as one should spend as much time as one wants talking to friends, partners, family and so forth.

This resulted in my phone usage being approximately halved, however during this stage, I used the extension option that iPhone users have too frequently. With the app being limited, one always has the option to extend the allotted time by 15min as often as one wants. This needed to improve, and highlighted just how truly I was addicted.

4 | Overall Time Limit

A new feature which was introduced with iOS 14, was the possibility to make time limits for groups of apps, meaning there’s a limit for all the apps, allowing for individual time allotment, while keeping the overall time to the minimum.

This was the hard cut. I set the overall time limit for at 2 hours, this included all news apps, games, social media etc. The only apps which aren’t limited are productivity apps such as notion, calendar and so on; as well as once again the communication apps.

This brought down my phone usage more successfully than the individual time limits. That was because I’d be scrolling Instagram, and then stopped myself as I wanted to make sure I had enough time for other apps later in the day.

5 | Black and White

An accessibility feature that the iPhone offers is “color filters”, turning the entire iPhone black and white. This makes your phone an incredibly boring, unpleasing item. It simply isn’t as fun, when everything is monotone. (iOS: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters) (Android: Settings > Developer Option > Stimulate Color Space > Monochromacy)

Doing this is a drastic step, as all design, social media and so forth are cast in a grey layer. However, what it accomplishes is that your phone becomes less interesting, less desirable and thereby one uses it less.

I noticed though, that this wasn’t a permanent solution. Photos, Instagram don’t make sense in B&W. So, thereby in order to make it permanent I made use of a new iOS accessibility feature (back tap). This allows one to double tap the back of the iPhone and using the options I have configured it to able and disable the color filter.

(iOS: Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap)

Phones have become a key within our culture. Everyone has one, everyone carries one, everyone is available 24/7 because of them. Yet while phones clearly have massive advantages and improvements to our everyday lives; being addicted to them is not comfortable nor pleasant; nor is it good for our mental health and social life.

Thereby change is necessary and valuable, having felt a large improvement to my mental health and daily productivity after these changes were made to my phone consumption.

So I appeal to all of you, check your phone consumption, see what you can do to change it. You’ll notice the difference.