Why Using Our Phone Less Can Help Us Live A Happier Life
Smartphones have become a huge part of society and, subsequently, something we struggle to be without. We’re rarely more than a metre away from our phone! They go everywhere with us, and the result is we are committing more time than ever to them.The average smartphone user in the UK spends 4 hours a day on their phone. If you do the maths, that’s 2 whole months a year (without sleep!) that we’re spending on our phone. If I asked you what would you love to spend 2 months a year doing, I bet you wouldn’t say looking at your phone!
Phones, of course, are a really useful tool. To have so much opportunity to communicate, capture images and document life always with us is great! BUT, how often do you consider the negative side of phones?
HOW MIGHT PHONES BE NEGATIVELY IMPACTING YOUR LIFE?
One of the main issues has to be time. It’s something we all feel like we’re chasing and wanting more of. Yet, we give 4 hours of every day to our phone. What could you do with more time? What could you achieve? How could you live a more fulfilled life by having more time?
Our phones are taking us away from the people, things and actions that can bring more joy to our life (such as Laughter Yoga!). While we may find small moments of joy in our phone, such as a funny video or a message from a loved one, the amount of time we spend on them isn’t a reflection of how much joy they bring us.
Spending so much time on our phones can also negatively impact our mental health in other ways. Becoming absorbed in others’ lives on social media (which is often a
misrepresentation of reality) can leave us with feelings of inadequacy. Our phones can also reduce our sleep, especially when we look at them last thing at night.
And they reduce our ability to focus and pay attention. This can have a big impact on our productivity or our ability to focus on things that can bring more joy to our life. The scroll, scroll, scroll and repeat action has trained our brains to focus on small snippets of information at a time. If you find yourself jumping quickly from one task to another, your phone might be to blame.
HOW CAN YOU REDUCE YOUR PHONE USE?
Reducing phone use isn’t about never using your phone again. They are amazing tools after all. It’s about using it less, to gain back more time, and being more conscious in your use. A few actions that can help reduce your phone use are:
1. Turn off notifications – notifications interrupt our day and take our focus away from what we are doing. They draw us to our phone, and we can then fall down the rabbit hole of losing time to our phone again. Turning them off makes a big difference to your phone use.
2. Leave it out of sight – the addictive nature of our phones means that if they are near us, we are likely to pick them up. Keeping them out of sight easily solves this problem. Try keeping your phone in another room, or on the other side of the room you are in, so you are not tempted to keep picking it up.
3. Use blocking apps – apps like Freedom and Forest are designed to help you reduce your phone use by stopping you using other apps.
Using your phone less can definitely help you live a more joyful life, give you time back for the people that matter and give you more time to do the things that bring you happiness.
Will you commit to using your phone less?
If you want to explore reducing your phone use, Sam Flynn has a short course that can help! Reduce Your Phone Use includes both video and eBook and details the difference using your phone less can make on your life, and the actions to take to reduce your phone use. To find out more, head to www.reduceyourphoneuse.com/gb
Sam Flynn
Reduce Your Phone Use
