How to Break Your Phone Addiction

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"This happens all too often"

You’re constantly struggling with your addictions; you have work that you need to do, aspirations you want to achieve, and have friends wanting to see you for days. But you can’t stop craving your phone. So how do you control it?

Theory Talk

To understand, let's talk about some theory. Everything we do, from cleaning our room to taking a walk, releases a hormone called dopamine which rewards us by "feeling" happy. Historically in our biology, dopamine would release to reinforce good actions such as hunting or mating.

The problem comes when reward to effort ratios disproportionate. For example, studying to get an A is rewarding but to achieve that requires immense effort, especially when considering scrolling on your phone is much easier to do and is more "rewarding."

Wanting vs liking

"Aren't these the same thing?"

Most people would say, "YES, LIKE DUH!" But hold on—it's important to know the difference. We normally associate the two words together: we like candy, so we want candy.

By definition, wanting is the desire for something reinforced by the brain's reward system, whereas liking comes from conscious thoughts and desires.

So, changing the first example, maybe you are tired of eating candy, but you continue to eat it. It's a seemingly uncontrollable urge that goes against your thoughts. In this case, you dislike candy, but you want candy.

This difference is why someone may want to scroll through social media in the middle of the night, even if they do not like doing it. Even in the most mundane tasks, the dopamine released fuels our need to keep going.

Examining an addiction

When looking at an addiction, we need to analyze the parts:

Cue: The visibility of the activity. We see a notification on the phone

Craving: Refers to if the action is desirable and if you can anticipate reward. For example, we wonder who sent me something, excited to know what they sent. Response: Reacting to the activity. In this case we open the phone and check our messages. Reward: What we got from doing the activity. Our body is releasing dopamine from seeing the messages.

"Can't we dopamine detox"

Erm, yes and no. If you "removed" all your dopamine, you get Parkinson's. There is a means to manage your dopamine, but that's for another post.

"Can't we just use willpower?"

That's a good question. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that. You should think of willpower as energy; you have a finite amount a day, and using all of it up will make you fall back into your addictions.

Action: The Environment

Remember how we mentioned about willpower? Instead of using it, we find a good space to do the heavy lifting while we can get back to the task at hand, whether it is studying, working, or just trying to enjoy life outside of social media. A distracting environment can really boggle us down if there are so many things grabbing our attention. Keep in mind a distracting environment doesn't mean noisy; some people can find the bustle of a cafe to help engage in their work, while a quiet library can be unnerving. Ultimately you need to know where you will get most of your work done.

Wherever this space is, make it sacred. Making it multifunctional for gaming or watching YouTube can erode the importance of the space and cause you to slip into distractions more easily.

Some key criteria to help with this would be:

• Will the environment cause you to step away from the work frequently?

• Will you get upset or frustrated with the noise or action in the room?

• Are there people or objects in the room you might make take away your attention?

At some point though there will be unavoidable distractions, construction happening outside, your toddler asking for chocolate milk, that sort of thing. But the space is useful to have that can get you work done a majority of the time.

Digital Distractions

Regardless, where we may be, our phones follow us everywhere. Don't get me wrong they are super useful, it helps us stay informed (like what you're doing right now reading this article ;) ) and keeps us connected. But scrolling through social media can be unhelpful, especially if it interrupts sleep.

"just dont go on social media"

Remember as much as possible we want to preserve our willpower to be used for other tasks. If we "resist" the temptations, we will tire out and we can eventually cave. The simplest method would be to turn off your phone. Using app blockers can be more effective if you struggle throughout the day or are trying to sleep. I personally use Appblock, it's a robust system to prevent opening up websites or apps on mobile devices.

Appblock

I do use the paid version of this which is on a monthly subscription and the free version has lots of limitations. For a free alternative I would use Stayfree.

Stayfree

For my computer, however, I use Cold Turkey. Essentially, it is the computer equivalent to Appblock but more robust. It is free to block websites with a paid version disable apps.

Cold Turkey

Action: The Self

This is where I think people struggle with the most because of its subtly and nuance. Staying healthy in all this will help, eating well, exercising, sleep and going for walks; but in spite of this, we can still feel agitated and uncomfortable as we deal try to fight the temptations. Unfortunately, there is no app to just "remove" addictions, but there are some techniques that can help.

Understand your "why"

In some cases, there may be no real meaning to it; you may simply like to go on the phone. But it is important to reflect over time.

 For social media, is it the feeling of FOMO? Is it because you want to learn about new? Is it the fond memories of funny content from your favorite creators. Is it your desire for nostalgia and to go back to simpler times.

Absolutely no judgment, but understanding this can help paint a picture, even if you may think the reason is irrational; it helps to put it on paper rather than having it muddled in your brain. You can reflect by journalling in a notepad or your phone, by asking these questions, as you learn more, slowly think of solutions to your problem, are there alternatives I could try. Take your time to really understand yourself and what makes you tick.

Fill those empty calories

The biggest challenge we will encounter when we deal with breaking our phone addiction is boredom. Think of it like this, if we replace a burger with a salad, it's technically healthier but a burger has a lot of calories, and we would be starving ourselves. The same thing can be said here, in order to prevent boredom is to substantiate it with other activities. Plan out your day with things to do, this can be spending time with friends, working out or other activities. By the time you are done in the day, you will be exhausted and that can help to fall asleep without scrolling on the phone.

Urge Surfing

If we go cold turkey (I don't mean the app), we can experience restlessness, brain fog, even fatigue in some instances through withdrawal.

Some ways people might cope is they'll dive right into the next most entertaining thing, or back into the devices.

Urge surfing is also valuable tool we can use, it's a technique to help deal with cravings and temptations and is commonly used to deal with substance use and addiction. The basic idea is we want to do essentially is:

• Acknowledge the discomfort we are feeling, notice it as it "rises" and "falls"

• Instead of resisting, ride out the discomfort over a period of time it will pass.

  
  

Meditation can supplement urge surfing to help with clarity and mental fatigue you may face.

Other sources:

https://www.amazon.ca/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299

https://www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/urge-surfing.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK-s2qBU40A

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5171207/#:~:text=Incentive%20salience%20or%20'wanting'%2C,is%20not%20dependent%20on%20dopamine.