Check out how to improve your smartphone habits. Take care of your mental health!
Cell phone addiction is a growing problem in our society. By using a smartphone all the time, people think they are being productive or distracting themselves. However, the truth is that excessive use of this device can cause many problems, such as distraction from work schedules, increased anxiety and stress, and social exclusion, which can lead to depression.
Many people use their phones during their downtime, which is not wrong. However, be careful. Sometimes your phone can make you even more stressed. This is because the large amount of information on the screen creates a feeling of “your mind racing”. Therefore, your body may be still, but your brain is still “working” hard to understand all the messages and data it is being exposed to. So, check out some tips to get rid of this type of cell phone addiction. This will greatly help your mental health.
Keep your cell phone away from your bed
This tip helps both when it's time to sleep and when you wake up. Good mental health depends a lot on regular sleep. Using your cell phone before bed can wake you up, or you can have a very restless sleep if you keep receiving notifications during the night.
As for waking up time, with your smartphone so close by, you could end up wasting a lot of time in your morning routine just checking social media. If you use your smartphone as an alarm clock, it's worth using another device for this function, such as an Alexa or a watch.
Disable notifications
Another tip that helps fight addiction on a cell phone is to turn off notifications. Who has never stopped working or studying because a message arrived on their smartphone? This quick glance can often last for hours without the individual even realizing that they are wasting so much time.
By disabling notifications you prevent the device from “stealing” your attention during your productivity time.
Turn on screen time information
Most modern cell phones have the ability to alert and show the user how much time they have spent on the device per week, month, and even per day. This way, you will be aware of how much time you are wasting on each application.
This is important because, on many occasions, people don’t realize that they have been logged in for such a long period of time. A good tip is to leave this information on the home screen of your phone. Making this information visible will help you better control your addiction.
Set time limits on apps
In addition to the tip above, you can use a tool from the social networks themselves to ensure that you don't spend more than a healthy amount of time logged in. There are features on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok that help you set a maximum period of time for using them.
This way, you can set up warnings to let people know when the allotted time has passed. To do this, go to the settings page of these apps, go to “Time spent”, and then “Manage your time”. There you will find several tools that you can use to decrease addiction on cell phone.
