LIFE WITHOUT A SMARTPHONE

Nowadays we live in a hyperconnected world that moves at an incessant rhythm and where we inevitably end up feeling either left behind or bourn-out. You may think that is natural, “part of the human being,” but we couldn’t be further from the truth.

Man-kind has lived on this earth for approximately 200.000 years but it’s only in the last 200 that we have started living in a society rather than a community.

A society is a group of individuals that live in the same place and are in competition with each other. A community instead is an organic group where people know personally each other and everyone it’s responsible for a piece of work indispensable for the well-being of the community itself.

Fauxels/pexels

In this society where everybody needs to outwork their neighbor, we feel the need to be hyper-informed about everything, everywhere all the time. we have lost sight of what is important to us.

How often have you spent time checking your emails, messages, or the news?

How many hours have you spent scrolling through social media or other “infinity pools apps”?

I bet the answer is way more than what you want to admit to yourself. Was it worth it? do you think that was a good use of your time?

Probably your answer is “No, but I can’t help it.” Believe me when I say that I understand you because those apps were made with that exact objective in mind.

“Infinity pools apps” make money by keeping you connected as much as possible and that’s exactly what they do therefore it’s not our fault if we can’t manage to limit our usage of them.

Adrienn/pexels

Internet addiction has increased drastically in the last years and the ones worst affected by it are younger folks that were born when technology was already widespread (gen z) or even when social media were already a thing (gen alpha). those generations have no idea of what it meant to live in a world without technology therefore they have nothing to compare their lifestyles with.

Studies have shown that devices like smartphones can be the cause of sleep issues, focus problems, and anxiety; therefore, it’s imperative we need to take back our lives and make time for the things that meters like:

• face-to-face conversations;
• time spent with the people we love;
• improving ourself;
• reading a book;
• exercise;
• take a walk;
• watch a movie;
• write a journal;
• start that project;
• do the things that “one day I would like to…”

Or just be bored because it’s when you are bored and let yourself wonder that you have creative thoughts, WE HAVE TO EMBRACE BOREDOM.

Andrea Piacquadio/pexels

In the last period, mostly among young people is born a new trend named #bringbackflipphones, made up of people that by eliminating smartphones, and using instead old flip phones are trying to cure their internet addiction and live a life truer to itself.

These young folks are trying to take it slow in a world that is always in a rush.

Now may not everyone it’s able, willing, or think is necessary to quit their phone entirely, as a matter of fact, the main difference between internet addiction and for example, smoking addiction is that where one has no benefit whatsoever, the other If used wisely as a lot of benefits.

Pixabay/pexels

There are a lot of techniques that you could use to reduce your screen time here are some (you don’t have to use all of them or just one feel free to try some of them mix them or do whatever you want):

1. throw your phone away and use a dumbphone instead (you could also decide a day of the week or a week where you need laser focus to use this technique).
2. Tourn your phone in a dumb phone (eliminate all the unuseful apps or eliminate them from the home screen this way it’s going to be harder to access them).
3. Keep your workspace “devices free” (or if you have space create two work sets the analogical one and the digital one).
4. When you feel the urge of using your phone or pc while you are working because you gotta know “How old is Johnny Depp?” or “When is the next football match?” or again “My friend Alex did anything interesting today?” just write it down on a piece of paper at the end of your work-session you can search it.
5. Wear a wristwatch this way you are going to avoid tourn on your phone every time you need to check the clock.
6. Don’t use any kind of device for at least an hour before going to sleep (you may not notice it right away but is going to do miracles for your sleep quality).
7. Don’t use your devices while you eat.

I hope some of these tips are going to be useful to you as they have been to me! For this article, the main sources of inspiration were: make time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, steal like an artist by Austin Kleon, and smart phone dumb phone by Allen Carr (all must read if you wanna dig deeper into the subject 😊).