Phone addiction

[Goostacean]

My own! Anyone had any luck beating it? Frustrated by how much more I could get done (like, 4 times as much as I do, at least!) if I just put the damn thing down...

Delete the apps you use most often.

Social media evaporates people’s lives, scroll.. scroll.. scroll..

Following, I get so annoyed with my aimless scrolling but forever pick it up and just waste time!

It’s so much easier to dip in and out of things like MN throughout the day than pick up the thread of a book in the few minutes of peace here and there.

Using the screen time function helped me to see how much time I was —wasting— spending online but tbh it only had a temporary effect.

My strikeout failed. You get the gist.

Yep. Picked it up just now to waste time while my laptop is doing a maintenance job so can’t be used (for work). Was thinking as I picked up my phone “I could be doing that shoe audit I promised myself I would do...” but nope. Within 30 seconds I was on this thread.

I have a lock on mine from 5.30pm until 7pm, and app locks on things like Chrome after two hours' use a day. I allow unlimited use of stuff like WhatsApp and Messaging, and my Kindle app. I find leaving it upstairs when I come downstairs helps though.

I think it's a bit like wanting to take up exercise to lose weight and get fit.

You have to recognise that it's going to take serious effort. Social media etc is like junk food: designed to be very addictive and give you a short-term pleasure hit. The more you use it, the harder it is to give sustained attention to things that require more mental effort and concentration (whatever this is for you - watching a film, reading a book, completing a craft, exercise, having long conversations with other people without constantly looking at your phone...). So whatever it is you want to do instead of scrolling on your phone, accept that it won't be instantly as pleasurable because it will require you to flex your mental muscles, which have probably got soft like physical ones do if you spend too much time sitting on the sofa. If you stick at it, it will improve and become more pleasurable. But you have to have strategies in place and expect it to be hard going at the start.

I put mine on charge upstairs and leave it there for the day. When I'm at work it stays in my locker. If I have it with me, I will be constantly looking at social media and various websites, checking emails etc
I made the decision about a year ago when I was spending more time online than off.

Another thought: I deleted all social media around a year ago, it took a few weeks until I realised I had all this extra time, but it took MONTHS to completely forget the habit. And it is a habit, the idea is microdosing dopamine so you constantly want to check, for that little hit, just like a drug addict.

There is no decent argument to keep social media, almost everyone I’ve known who uses it just scrolls through photos/comments on other peoples lives for hours each day rather than living their own (including me until last year).

I have heard ‘but it helps keeping in contact with people far away’ nah that’s bull because the hours spent everyday on it could be spent contact the minority you actually want to hear from. With time to spare.

I don’t know about you but living my life is certainly more important to me than watching others live theirs..

1. get a watch so you don't pull out your phone to check the time
2. buy a cheap Nokia and get a free pay as you go sim card from GiffGaff so you can go for walks and things and have an emergency phone but not get sidetracked by your iPhone
3. Delete apps
4. watch the Social Dilemma on Netflix to understand how David vs Goliath your task is

Good to know I’m not alone!

I mostly spend time on here, actually. Facebook is full of ads lately, so I don’t use it much- but I’m sure my screen time report would disagree.

A huge challenge for me is that I use it for loads of important things too: online food shop, work emails, staying in touch with parents and in-laws to whom we’re very close. It’s just learning to step away from it once I’ve done the useful task and not sink another 10-15mins into the device.

No luck here. It's not even social media that's the problem it's bloody mumsnet!

SAME! I at least downloaded a book onto my Kindle last weekend and have been reading it before bed every night for 15mins or so, which has been great.

The frustrating irony is that I feel stressed that I have too much to do, then I don’t know where to start so I give up and go on my phone... but if I spent even half the time I spend on nonsense, tackling the list- I’d be much less stressed!

Oh Op
I could have written your post
Def leaving it charged away from you
Make it harder to actually find fb on your phone
I deleted mn app off my phone and didn't post for months and months
Can't shake fb and insta and whatsapp esp at the moment

I'm awful for it. I just find myself reaching for my phone every time my hands aren't doing something else. I tried an app which stops Facebook from working at certain times, but it could be bypassed and I find myself just bypassing it "just for a minute to do XYZ" and before I know it, 2 hours have gone by. I've ddeleted the facebook app noe
Scrolling mumsnet is the other thing which I do mindlessly. If I don't start it's fine, but once I start it's hard to stop.

Well I do listen to music whilst I do stuff and I use YouTube, and then if I click away from the app the music stops... so that often keeps my hands at bay!

Well I’ve actually had a better week with this as work has been crazy... but the weekend has started and I’m already slipping! Could have achieved so much more this morning already