{"id":122,"date":"2020-05-22T22:41:41","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T22:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/?p=122"},"modified":"2020-05-22T22:43:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T22:43:28","slug":"are-we-smart-with-our-smart-phone-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/2020\/05\/22\/are-we-smart-with-our-smart-phone-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we smart with our smart phone? (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I promised myself that I will reduce my screen time and surprisingly I kept that promise. My YouTube and Google had histories of me searching for ways to reduce screen time and the irony was, I was using my phone.\u00a0 Then, I found “Break up with your phone” and my formal process started.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in between the process, the pandemic of COVID-19 happened and made us stay home all the time, one more strong excuse<\/em> to use our phone even rigorously.<\/p>\n

When I shared my previous<\/a> posts about the smartphone, I received various mixed responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s true. I will be mindful of how I use my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so true but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are not using your phone, it\u2019s just mean that you have found something else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that I am not even as addicted as much as you\u2019re.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut phones are useful. How will you be connected to people if you don\u2019t use a phone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are not using your phone, what are you doing then? How are you spending your time?\u201d<\/p>\n

The questions are obvious but I want to emphasize that I do use my phone and I do believe it’s important but just that I really believe that reducing my screen time has really helped me stay productive and stay present. I want to share the tips that I applied in the process of reducing screen time.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The \u201cwhy\u201d behind reducing screen time:<\/strong>\u00a0I think this is the most crucial step to breaking any habit. Every voluntary change starts with self-awareness. I wanted to reduce my phone usage because I felt like I just did not have enough time to do things I needed to do and things I wanted to do while I was spending so much of my time on my phone scrolling the unending newsfeed of social media. It just meant that I was compromising my time on my phone When I could have done so many other \u201cnecessary\u201d things.<\/li>\n
  2. Write it out:\u00a0<\/strong>On Nov 16, 2019, I analyzed my phone usage and titled \u201cDetaching from the Digital World\u201d. I wrote the hours I spend on that day, that week, and specifically the amount on each category such as social media, reading, productivity, etc. It is equally important to know why we are using your phone as much as why we do not want to. So, I wrote \u201cwho are reasons\u201d, \u201cwhat are the reasons\u201d and \u201cwhat I could have done\u201d. I think visualizing the things that were in my head on a paper, really shaped out the rest of my activities that I did to reduce my screen time.<\/li>\n
  3. Remove social media apps:<\/strong> After I wrote it out, the first thing I found was I did spend a lot of my time on social media. So, that was my first step. I removed all of my social media apps. Later, I even removed Gmail and email. If needed to use anything, I would need to open a browser. I open my laptop instead of my phone to do all those stuff now. So, technically, I may not have reduced to use social media but not having a phone around me all the time, did help to reduce a lot of distraction.<\/li>\n
  4. Schedule call time:\u00a0<\/strong>To schedule a call is not always possible or feasible but if it is, I think it’s a great idea. I told each of my \u201cwho are the reasons\u201d people to call me directly or in Viber instead of the messenger. There are far more limited people in Viber than a messenger and it\u2019s not as addictive as a messenger. This has made me realize that I do not need to take my phone everywhere or open social media feeling like I missed something and instead miss myself out there for hours or so.<\/li>\n
  5. Turning off notification:\u00a0<\/strong>Every notification wanted me to have my hand on my phone. So, I turned everything off. If I want to know anything, I would open it directly. Initially, I started to use and open those apps even more because I felt I must have missed something but nope, there is nothing special that needed any immediate attention.<\/li>\n
  6. Keep the phone away:\u00a0<\/strong>I started to keep my phone away from me and my bed while I sleep. I still remember the feeling at first, I was like, what if I needed to see the time, what if I woke up in the middle of the night? I did it anyway, it felt good. Instead of checking my phone and keep watching it for another hour, I slept. Instead of waking up suddenly and keep scrolling my newsfeed, I would stare for a while and sleep. I started to do it during the daytime as well. I would leave my phone in my room and go to the kitchen or restroom or other areas where the phone does not add any significant value but just distraction. I am still not 100% phone proof and do take my phone with me in various places but way less than before.<\/li>\n
  7. Utilizing my time:<\/strong> If we don’t use our phone and also don’t do any other kinds of stuff, we would come back again to use our dear phone. With the time freed recently, I have started to read books, started blogging, and also let my mind wander for a while. I even find time to stretch myself a little bit sometime, that I need to increase. I find myself having more time than before. Well, to be honest, it\u2019s also because of Quarantine as I don\u2019t waste my time on the commute but it\u2019s also true that if I am using my phone every time I am free, I am actually not free at all.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I hope it helps a little if anyone wants to reduce screentime and utilize that time to do anything they want or need to do.\u00a0It’s not easy to just tell ourselves and not use our phone but I strongly believe that we can by applying appropriate steps if we think we should.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I promised myself that I will reduce my screen time and surprisingly I kept that promise. My YouTube and Google had histories of me searching for ways to reduce screen time and the irony was, I was using my phone.\u00a0 Then, I found “Break up with your phone” and my formal process started. Somewhere in … Continue reading Are we smart with our smart phone? (Part 2)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/meenachhantyal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}