Truth is, we are not going to get rid of phones any soon. Instead, phone manufacturers in Silicon Valley and across the globe are working tirelessly to invent new powerful devices that will keep us glued to our small screens even more.
So what do we do? Before I tell you the one thing we need to do, we ought to understand how phones get at us and keep us looking at them.
Nobody likes to buy black and white branded packages, right? We go for the ones washed in colors and designed in beautiful patterns. That’s exactly what phone manufacturers use to their advantage.
Thomas Z. Ramsoy, the CEO of Neurons, a company that study’s apps and future technology told the New York Times that phone apps use color palettes and sound to constantly draw a phone users attention.
This means that without color and sound, we can almost forget that we are carrying a device in our pocket right?
But think about it for a moment, do we ever agree that there is also computer addiction and that at some point we also had TV addiction? How did we learn to live with computers and TV’s without being addicted?
We learnt and accepted that computers are for work and so we use them entirely for work. And for TV’s, thank God, the constant fight for channels between kids their parents and other adults simply saved us that addiction.
But does this tell us something about how to get rid of phone addiction? It does!
The answer to phone addiction is to learn to cope with having a phone around and not be addicted to it!
So how do we cope?
We need to make our phones a tool and not a toy. Thanks to those that already use their phones as tools you are on the right path. Here is how to use your phone as a tool;
Let your work shape you
The more you know that your phone is for work the less you will use it unproductively. Turn off the notifications that come from social media and instead stick to the notifications that are linked to your website and your emails.
I know some people work on social media. Salespeople, entrepreneurs and a whole bunch of other people but there is a way to work on social media and not get a thorn in your side.
Limit the notifications from the pages that are all about fun and instead go full bloom on the pages where you work from. This way, you have work related stuff put in your face as compared to the flashy photos of Gwen’s new dress.
Turn off the color on your phone
I think the first thing you need to do is go greyscale. (Replace the colors on your phone apps and replace them with a grey screen. To do this, go to settings, choose accessibility and then tap on color filters.
Trust me WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and whatever else you love will become less appealing and luring when you see them displayed in black and white on your screen.
Get rid of your old phone
An old phone glues you to the screen even when you don’t want or need to be there. It will roll browsers slowly and as you navigate your finger probably gets a cut from the cracked screen. Why on earth are you keeping an old phone when phone companies have made upgrading to a new one so easy?
If I were you, I would sell my Samsung S7 and get a Samsung S8 or 9 and live the dream! Why? Because by the time the S10 is out, the S7 will have drastically become slower than it is right now keeping you addicted in a slow pain in the neck kind of way; and when you finally make up your mind to sell it, it will be going for peanuts.
And that my friend is how we are going to kick phone addiction in the butt and start yielding productivity when using our phones!