Understand Mobile Addiction!

Addictions are pretty bad things. Whenever we hear the word "addiction" a negative vibe comes in a mind. And that is right. If you go through my philosophy "Addiction is something that controls you".

We live in the most advanced era where everything is advanced due to artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. But in this advancement, something we forget is it will become out of control. 

This blog is about mobile addiction and how I got rid of it.

Studies say on average a younger adult spends 4 hours on a mobile phone every day. Today phone has just become another body part. We feel anxious and disturbed if we are without our phone for a few minutes. People are seen mostly with their phone. We at first thing in the morning, while having meals, sitting, standing, in between conversation, while working out, before going to sleep use the mobile phone. Mobile phones were created to use but unfortunately, they are using us now. 

A quote to mention,

"Technology is a good servant but a bad master." 

I was watching a video of a man about mobile addiction, and he said, "Seriously ask your self, aren't you slave to your phone?" And the answer, we all know.

Studies suggest a large number of teenagers feel depressed and have anxiety due to excessive use of social media. Even the posture of the human body is getting curved. It is also decreasing the presence of mind, memory and brainpower. It has taken control of our sleeping, 80% of people use their mobile phone before sleeping.

Now I am sharing some of the tips that I used to get rid of it. I started noticing it one and a half a year ago when I used to use a mobile phone for 6 to 7 hours. I noticed that I just waste my time and there is no productivity in it. I was continuously wasting my time over social media, just swiping and scrolling down. No productivity, no skills improvements, no new things, so I used to waste the precious thing of life, the time.

I started searching on Google what to do, what are the first move I should take to overcome this addiction. And something I got to know was that most of the people don't want to accept it that they are addicted to mobile phone. Mostly, teenagers, argue with their elders that this is the young and modern generation, so we know better than you and this compliment is used by every teenager which is totally wrong, there is no fact, just a blunder.

After watching a lot of research and watching YouTube videos, I got enough information on how to deal with it. These are the tips that I used:

TRACK YOUR DAILY USAGE:

I downloaded some apps that are used to track your daily usage. There are a lot of apps on Google Play Store and Apple Store, just search daily usage. The app I used was YourHour, the best app I found. When I started using it, I got to know how much I use my phone every day, and where do I waste my time. I got to know I waste almost 5 hours on social media where nothing is productive (Studies show Social media is the reason for teenager depression. Check out an article about Social Media Addiction)*NOT PUBLISHED YET. Swiping the whole day, seeing other pictures, comments, basically useless things. After noticing it I started balancing my time and these apps that I mentioned before send you a notification when you use an excessive amount on useless apps which kept me motivated, and I kept a balance.

BLOCK APPS AFTER SURPASSING THE LIMIT:

There are plenty of apps that are used to block the app when you cross the given limit. Some of them are Block productivity..., App blocker even YourHour has an option to block apps when you surpass the limit. It is the best thing to control your addiction and get rid of it.

REPLACE MOBILE WITH A LAPTOP OR A COMPUTER:

The best thing to overcome mobile addiction is to replace it with a laptop or pc. Try using social media, YouTube on a laptop. Laptops and PCs are the devices which you can't take all the time with you and the mobile phone you know you can take it wherever you want. So try using YouTube and social media on a laptop.

DISABLE ALL THE NOTIFICATIONS

The best thing which can overcome your addiction. When you disable notifications, you will not receive any notification and when you will not get notified, you will not open the apps. Don't try to block WhatsApp or SMS services apps notifications as you will not get notify who is messaging you, which can turn into a problem as you will forget some important messages. This happened to me, I disabled all the notifications and didn't get notified about some messages that were sent by my close friends and relatives, and they started asking where are you Umer? seriously are you busy or something happened? this was obviously due to not receiving any messages and replying to them back.

LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST:

Try using social media for only 10 to 20 minutes or spend a maximum of 20 minutes on every major app you use.

THE LEAST ONE:

Uninstalled all social media apps or use them on a laptop or a computer. I do use Twitter to get notified about news and politics. But the other apps I only used on a laptop and just for a while, a maximum of 5 minutes.