Wellness Challenge #6:

Phone Detox

Do you know how much time you spend on your phone? What about within various apps? If you have an iPhone, you can check this by going to Settings –> Battery –> Last 7 Days –> Click on any one of the apps to see the hour breakdown. Time on screen is the active time you spent on that app. If you have an Android, I believe you need to download an app to track this, but if someone knows otherwise, please let me know! Here’s mine below {please don’t judge me!}:

WHOA! I spent 30 hours on social media, online, in my email, and in messaging apps. THAT’S INSANE! I always say I wish I had more time in the day, but I could actually gain a little over a day if I cut out time on my phone. CRAZINESS! I spend a lot of time on my phone working on blogging activities {responding to comments, pinning, etc} but if I’m being completely honest with myself, a large percentage of the time I spend on my phone is also just mindless.

When we first decided to dedicate this month’s mental wellness challenge to a phone detox, we weren’t even thinking about the time we would gain if we spent less time on our phone. A phone detox was on our minds because both Bassam and I felt like we were starting to develop a major addiction to our phones. We were finding ourselves picking it up every couple of minutes, especially when we had a little bit of down time, even if that downtime was only a couple of seconds long. We both mess around on our phones before we go to sleep and are on our phones the moment we wake up in the morning. We check our phones constantly even when we are hanging out together, which basically means we have a third wheel constantly with us. Can you relate?

We know that all this screen time and constantly being connected isn’t healthy for our minds or our relationship, which is why we are dedicating this month’s health challenge to a phone detox. {See previous health challenges here}

This is not going to be a super intense phone detox. We are going to take small steps to cut down our phone time and see how we feel about those steps. The reason why we aren’t doing a full detox is because we know we can’t maintain that long term. We want to try some new ideas to try to develop healthy boundaries with our phones and discover strategies that can work for us long term.

My goal is to cut down my phone usage time by 4.5 hours each week. By the end of the month, I’d like to see my phone usage time go from 30 hours per week to 12 hours per week. I’ll have to see how reasonable this is considering that I do need to use my phone to maintain our social media sites, so if I’m seeing I can’t get done what I need to do, I may readjust my goal.

Bassam isn’t sure how many hours he wants to cut down his usage by because we weren’t sure how to find that information on Android. He’s going to download a tracking app this week and then develop a goal after he knows what his baseline is.

Here are a few ideas we are going to try to cut our phone time down:

We both feel extremely resistant to a few of these ideas, but we are reminding ourselves it’s not forever. We are just trying it to see how we feel. It’s just an experiment. We may or may not continue with it for the long term, but at least we will have tried it and seen if it makes a difference or not.

1. Keep the phone away

I know that anytime my phone is next to me, I’ll just mindlessly grab it. I’m going to try to put my phone in another room or in my purse when I don’t really need it. This should cut down the amount of time I spend mindlessly scrolling.

2. Sign out of or delete social media apps

Bassam was finding that all the news he was consuming on Facebook was starting to depress him. After the World Cup is over, Bassam is planning on deleting Facebook from his phone for the rest of the month. If you’re finding social apps are negatively affecting you, consider deleting them for the month. If you just want to cut down on the time you spend using them, consider signing out of the app. If you have to sign back in each time you want to use it, it may become more of a mindful and conscious choice.

3. Designate phone free times

Bassam and I are going to designate “phone free times”. This may be when we are having dinner together or when we are watching TV together. Having the phone be off limits will make it easier to not pick it up and also let us focus our attention on each other.

4. Develop phone cut off times

Similar to above, designating cut off times can also help create healthy phone boundaries. I know it’s not healthy for my sleep, my mind, my productivity, or my relationship with Bassam to go to sleep with my phone and wake up with it too. I know it’s keeping me from getting a good night’s rest and I’m really interested to see how I’ll feel once I stop doing this. I’ve been really resistant to this idea because the time I spend on my phone in bed is typically very productive. It’s when I catch up on comments and messages or do other “work” for Instagram. Even though it’s productive, it’s still not great for my health and I’m going to experiment with doing my Instagram work at other times during the day. If I hate it after this month, I won’t continue to do it, but I’m hoping I’ll see enough positive results that I will want to continue with it.

5. Turn off notifications

As I’m typing this blog post, I see my phone lighting up, and my curious self looks over to see what the notification is all about. It’s usually nothing too important, but I always find myself getting distracted from the task at hand to attend to the notification. I feel extremely anxious and resistant to this idea, but for at least one week this month I’m going to try turning off all notifications. I will set specific times to check socials and my email and fight the urge all other times. Logically I know that this will be extremely beneficial to my productivity and I will not die, but I’m still freaking out about it.

We’d love to hear from you! How much time do you spend on your phone? Will you join us this month in spending less time on your phone? Let us know in the comments below or chat with us in our Health Challenges Facebook Group.