Cell Phone Addiction – Is There a Cure?

Cell phone addiction

Cell phone addiction is a real thing. Like most Americans, you’re addicted to your cell phone. Whether you realize it or not, you’re swiping and liking, tweeting and surfing, all day long. And the problem is, you don’t realize you’re doing it.

Using a cell phone all day has become culturally acceptable. Whether walking around, at the office, or relaxing at home, using a phone signals to others that you’re busy, important, and have a cool social life.

And you don’t have to look further than a subway station, restaurant, or company lunch room. Everyone is sucked into their smartphone, staring into that hypnotic glow.

But here’s the good news: It’s not your fault.

Cell Phone Addiction – Preying on Us

Companies like Facebook admit they’re preying on our weakness. Sean Parker, the old President of Facebook, readily admits they’re taking advantage of people. Facebook is exploiting a flaw in the human psyche, the endorphins we receive from “likes” and praise. It’s Facebook’s business model to make us as addicted as possible and to rely on social media for all our needs.

This is horrible, and I can’t believe I wrote a sentence like that. We’re in an age where we can outsmart addiction. We know things like cigarettes, illegal drugs, and alcohol have severe addictive holds on us – yet when it comes to a tiny computer screen, everyone literally looks the other way. Perhaps no one wants to admit their flaws in the first place. No one wants to admit they’re wrong.

Cell Phone Addiction – Good?

Smartphone users think social media is beneficial. They believe interacting with peers is good for them.

And at it’s core, social interaction is important – it’s very important. Living in community is even a Biblical principal.

But staring at a cell phone all day is not. Relying on the endorphin boosts from “likes” and “comments” is not helping anyone. You’ve become sucked into a never-ending feedback loop, only to be a cog in the Facebook machine, being fed advertisements, in an effort to make money.

Facebook is a corporation, after all. Their goal is to make money. They’re not a non-profit. Their business model is not to help people, or to provide engaging social interaction. Their goal is to make money, and to suck you in, and to make you addicted to their product.

And for me, as a businessman, that is a brilliant business model – to take advantage of a loophole in people’s personalities and to have them literally looking at my product every 10 seconds. I wish I could have thought of something like that. I’d be rich.

But honestly, could I really live with myself, knowing I was legitimately hurting people? Probably not. That wouldn’t feel right.

So now you have the knowledge of what they’re doing to you, here are some tools to break the cycle and cure your cell phone addiction:

Cell Phone Addiction – #1Put Phone Away

Keeping your smartphone in another room is a sure-fire way of curing your cell phone addiction. If your phone is always within arms reach, you’ll be grabbing for it all day long. You’ll casually check the time, or just open the screen to stare at the pretty icons. Getting your phone out of the room turns it into the telephone it’s supposed to be. If it rings, answer it like a normal person. You’ll be surprised at how better your focus is to work on other projects, or to simply relax. (What a novel idea – relaxing)

Cell Phone Addiction – #2 Uninstall Social Media Apps

If you don’t have Facebook or Twitter on your smartphone, you won’t be tempted to scroll endlessly through the abyss. It’s a simple solution, but it’s effective. If you do need social media for work, turn off the notifications, or only use the apps on a laptop. Simply not engaging with people on your phone cuts off all the endorphin rushes from that pretty little screen.

Cell Phone Addiction – #3 Turn on Greyscale

If you really want to hate your cell phone, turn off the color. By engaging greyscale, you’ll turn your phone into a black and white brick. It makes your phone feel like a newspaper, only useful for reading articles and emails. I tried this for a week and literally wanted to cancel my cell phone bill. My smartphone felt pointless.

There’s lots of easy remedies you can employ to cure your cell phone addiction, including some more helpful tips here.

But simply acknowledging you have a problem and knowing it’s not your fault, is the first step to any good solution.

Cell Phone Addiction – Action Steps:

  • Put your phone in another room
  • Turn off notifications
  • Use greyscale, it’s horribly effective

Do you look at your phone too much? How much time to do spend on Facebook or social media? Are you willing to try any of these tricks to free yourself from Facebook’s evil grip?

Comments

  1. Karine M. Gonzalez

    Hi Joe, excellent write up!! Thank you for this article! Truly that we always check our smartphones wether have a message or not, wether have an notification or not, we didn’t notice that even of our event can affect by always using and checking our cellphones. This article will be helpfull for us, we must have to learn how and when we have to use our phones for avoiding to get addicted on it.

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