To ask how to break a phone addiction

[Nuphonewhodis]

I genuinely feel addicted to my phone. Most days I spend at least 6 hours, often more, on Facebook, Mumsnet etc. I really struggle to stop this and feel such an urge to carry on reading these websites when I'm meant to be researching and writing essays etc.

I feel as if I can't just switch it off completely all day in case someone needs to contact me.

Has anyone had any experience of this and if so, how did you wean yourself off your phone?

Bump

Charge it in the evening in the kitchen so it's not at hand.

No phones on the bed side table at night.

Remove the opportunity to just fiddle with it and it soon stops.

What sort of phone do you have? I know iPhones let you limit access to certain apps

what keeps brining you here? is it the chance to talk about things that you wouldn't normally be able to talk about to your friends / family etc?

Leave your phone at home sometimes. For example sometimes when I go for a walk with the dog I leave the phone at home. So I enjoy the walk, nature and just absorbing my environment and not looking at my phone. It’s a bad habit the phone. My phone time is 3 hours a day!! Which is horrible! I’m trying to get it down to 1 hour. I tend to use my phone to read the news, Facebook etc. But three hours is just want too much. I’m also trying to cut down. I need to get into a good book and start banking my phone from 7pm. I think starting tomo I’ll stop using internet from 7pm. And try to cut down during the day as well.

Delete FB and Mumsnet apps from phone.
Don't take your phone out with you as much.
As PP said, charge in a different room.

Go one day a week without your phone.

Install one of the apps that limit your online time.

Have a screen free window during the day, or a couple of breaks of a couple of hours.

I have an Android.

@officeworker I think it's probably boredom thats bringing me here, I'm usually most tempted when I'm supposed to be doing some other task that I'm not particularly interested in.

The difficulty is that I do my work at home most days and so my phone is constantly tempting me. I've tried going to the library and leaving my phone at home a few times but it made me so agitated and fidgety! But then again I feel rubbish when spent hours starting at my phone screen, it happens almost every day and I know it makes me feel groggy and lethargic, I just find it so hard to give it up

You're not alone OP. I'm terrible and it got worse when I started matched betting as now I spend time doing that and reading stuff relating to that.

I'm a procrastinator. I barely watch any tv these days as I'm always on my phone instead.

My problem is I'm single parent (although I was bad before DC) so it actually keeps me connected to people when I'm often alone!

I have not found a good app that limits your use unfortunately. I downloaded one but facebook and all the apps they owned were not blocked. Something to do with access rights.

How do you block apps on an iPhone?

I seriously use my phone about 7hours a day. It's crazy.

Forget to bring your phone with you and travel nearly 150 miles away from it - Sorry, that was me.

Buy a cheap phone that does texts and calls and use that.

Use the laptop for the computer things that you need to do.

I honestly think that buying a cheap phone may be the only answer. But then I also need to be able to check my emails when out and about so this could be an issue.

@panda and @spugz it's hard isn't it! My phone I find just sucks me right in and hours pass by before I've even noticed

I could have written this post. I don’t know the answer either but I’m also looking for ideas. Tried leaving phone at home but I’m just counting the time down while out until I can get back to it.

I get bored at work too, whenever I get a case that seems like a lot of work and a lot of investigation I'll find any excuse to do something else instead.

Have you tried finding a study partner to work with? They may help to keep you interested while doing essays etc