Yes, we live in the IT era. Most of us are in a 9-5 desk jobs that has us tied to screens for half of our day. We get back to our homes only to have our heads fix to Netflix, Prime, YouTube, what not. And in between these and throughout our day is our eyes dutifully scrolling through Insta-feeds, Whatsapp messages, booking an Uber, setting an alarm, making a to-do list all in our smartphones.
This needs to change and now. If you have your heart set to redeem yourself from a phone-addiction (which is actually a real thing!) here are four super effective ways to reduce your screen time:
Embrace minimalist smartphone:
This is a growing trend in the phone industry. Many companies are going back to manufacturing phones with bare minimum features. A phone just to make a call and send an SMS (NOT WHATSAPP) or two…. aha the good’ol days! These are designed for when one wants to take a break from the bulk of a full smartphone experience.
Download Anti-Smartphone apps:
Fight tech with tech! There are apps like offtime, breakfree, Moment (Android only) that help filter app notifications and make customise mode like work mode, family mode, vacation etc. There are also extreme apps like the Flipid that allows you to lock and completely disable your phone for a set period of time.
Grayscale your phone:
Trust me you’ll be looking at your phone lesser if it is in a depressing black and white. No one wants to look at anything gloomy for a long time. This option is available in the accessibility settings for IOS. On a Samsung device, in Vision, put it on grayscale. Android users can activate through Google Digital Well Being tool.
Away from home screen:
Push all attractive apps that tend to distract you away from your home/main screen. Keep them as hidden away as possible. Maybe, inside a folder that’s inside another folder in the page three of your phone.