Aarti was a brilliant girl studying in 12th standard. She was a regular topper in her school and her parents had high hopes from her that she will do excellent in her C.B.S.E. board examinations too. Strangely, she didn’t do well in her examinations and scored average marks to everyone’s surprise. When her parents asked for the reason, she was afraid to commit but at last, revealed that she was not able to concentrate on her studies due to her mobile addiction. The schedules she made to study and sleep at night went all disrupted because she was always chatting with friends on her smartphone on WhatsApp and Facebook. Her parents repented to gift her a smartphone on her last birthday because it made her score very less than expected.
Aarti is not alone, several people like her are not even aware but are suffering from a severe mobile addiction. They are unable to get a good night’s sleep and perform well in life. They are desperate to get mobile addiction treatment to improve the quality of their sleep and life.
So, we are here to help you in your struggle to give up your smartphone at night by acquainting you with 9 smart ways to stop mobile addiction. But before that let us first tell you about the common mobile addiction symptoms.
Common Mobile Addiction Symptoms
- Feeling restless if the mobile is out of sight
- Using mobile to tell you what to do during the day
- Getting hooked to the social media apps
- Unable to sleep at night and then feeling sleeping whole day
- Avoiding meeting people in real because you are happy meeting new ones on the social media apps
- Obesity and other health issues due to lack of outdoor playtime in children
Psychological Effects of Cell Phone Addiction
Over usage of smartphones plays havoc on one’s mental health. Some of the common psychological effects of cell phone addiction are:
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Fatigue
- Sleep Disturbances
- Depression
- Loneliness
- Impaired Relationships
- Poor Scores
Also Read: Are Psychological Disorders Covered Under Health Insurance?
9 Ways to Stop Phone Addiction
As such, there is no mobile addiction treatment advised by doctors, but yes there are a couple of things one may try to get over the screen addiction and live a healthy and stress-free life like:
1. Plan Smart for Long-Term Results: Firstly, remember it is not that easy to get over a mobile addiction instantly. So, it is better to plan smartly with small steps to get long-term results. Cut down a few minutes initially on your mobile phone usage before bedtime and gradually increase this time to stop the addiction.
2. Make a Screen Time Schedule: Secondly, we have seen many people get successful to stop phone addiction at bedtime by charting out a screen schedule for themselves. This is not important just for your kids but for yourself too. Fix a time when you will not touch your mobile for any reason unless urgent and stick to this schedule.
3. Create a Screen-Free Bedroom: Third effective idea to ditch the screen at night is by creating a screen-free bedroom. Try to create a peaceful bedroom with things and color of the walls apt to get a peaceful night for an apt sleep. There should be no television, laptop, or mobile in your bedroom if you wish to get over the psychological effects of cell phone addiction.
4. Keep Your Mobile Out of Sight: As someone said out of sight helps keep things out of mind, so apply this formula to curb your mobile addiction especially when you plan to go to bed at night. Try to put your mobile, tablet, and laptop away, most preferably out of your reach when you intend to go to sleep and this will help a lot.
5. Give Time to your Family: Mobile addiction can be curbed to a great extent if you decide to give more time to your family rather than to the mobile. Try playing a board game or chat with your family members before going to bed instead of picking your mobile and this will do the trick!
6. Don’t Turn your Mobile into an Alarm Clock: Earlier people used the traditional alarm clocks to wake up in the morning and often slept again shutting it off. However, now one big reason to deprive oneself of that much-needed sleep is that people have replaced their alarm clocks with their smartphones. This addictive gadget somehow disappears from their sleep the moment they touch it to shut the alarm due to their curiosity to check the social media notifications. So, don’t make your mobile turn into an alarm clock.
7. Opt for a Grayscale: Ditch your mobile by trying to opt for a grayscale display often offered as a display setting in the latest smartphones. Get away with those flashy and colorful apps that kind of trigger your brain to stay awake and not feel sleepy. The grayscale mode will help diminish your desire to hold onto your mobile for a long duration at night time.
8. Turn Off Notifications: One thing that makes anyone curious to hold on to that mobile again is the notification beep. So, the trick as simple as it seems to be is just to turn off the notifications except for very important people in your life. This will avoid those disturbing notifications often sent not by people but by machines to advertise something. As a result, you will not itch to hold on to your mobile before going to sleep.
9. Switch Off Your Mobile: If all the above-mentioned tricks are not helping you to overcome your mobile addiction symptoms, then the best way out is to switch off your mobile before going to bed. This will keep all the stuff, whether it is notification, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook shut down for you until you wake up the next morning.
The Bottom Line
It’s true getting addicted to mobile is pretty easy but if you decide to get over the mobile addiction symptoms with strong willpower, nothing is impossible! Try to plan for other activities rather than sticking to your smartphone and try not to carry it everywhere to get rid of the addiction to a great extent.
