It's hard to find anyone these days who isn't addicted to social media. Those who are constantly active on social media face a psychological problem called FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. There's always a fear of losing something, an anxiety about falling behind. Mobile detox is essential to overcome this problem. It's also difficult. But not doing it can lead to serious trouble. Today's discussion is about how to overcome mobile or social media addiction step by step and stay healthy and normal. We'll also explore several apps for this purpose.
When something happens on social media and you miss it, extreme anxiety begins. To avoid this, many people delete all social media apps from their cell phones. It turns out this doesn't really help. So there's no point in deleting apps. Instead, examine how severe your addiction is. See how much your anxiety increases when you distance yourself from your phone.
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For this detox, the first essential step is measuring how much time you spend browsing social media. Google and Apple offer several options for this. iPhone settings have an option called 'Screen Time'. You can easily see how much time you're spending on your phone by going there. You can also set limits from this option. The iPhone will alert you once you exceed that time limit. This will control your screen time.
Google's Digital Wellbeing a viable option
Many Android phones have Google's Digital Wellbeing tool in their settings. You can also measure your phone and app activity with that. Additionally, there are some apps that will greatly help with detox. iPhone users can try the Dumb Phone app. This app makes the phone's home screen so boring that you'll feel annoyed just touching it. There's also Opal. This app shows how much screen time you have. It regularly shows how long you kept yourself away from screen time and how much it extended your life.
There's also a good app called Forest for detox. This app follows a game model. You're asked to plant a tree seed. After planting that seed, the longer you stay away from your phone, the bigger that tree will grow. If you don't follow the time, you'll see the tree dying before your eyes. And if you can grow the tree big, you'll get virtual points. There's more. If you can grow any tree, the Forest app plants a tree somewhere in the world. So this app does two things together – detox and greening.
You could also give up the smartphone altogether. Of course, you don't have to disconnect from the world. For this, you can choose Nokia's 2660 model basic phone. This retro-look phone will remind you of those old days when you could play snake.
Overall, set your own detox checklist. Bring back old habits. Make sure it's mindful. Then the detox will happen.
