Phone Addiction!

Hey everyone!

Welcome back :)

Today's post is based on something nearly every single person presently suffers from:

✨Phone Addiction✨

We've all heard of the surveys that show the average amount of time a person spends on their phone. Recently, the numbers in India have risen up to 4.5 to 5 hours.

And this is just the average of all age groups.

Ask a teenager what their screen time is and I can guarantee you it would be no less than 6 hours (some exceptions included of course). 6 hours is the mean time people spend ideally sleeping or in school.

(Okay enough with the emphasizing ; you get the idea - we spend an obnoxious amount of time glued to our phones.)

But the real question is,

Why?

Simply, the applications.

Teens who have active social media apps are 90% more likely to spend their majority time on their phone as compared to someone who has an imposition on these apps. 

A secret that most developers don't reveal is that these apps are literally designed to keep you hooked on it. 

These apps build psychology into technology to make it persuasive and send notifications after notification to get you to open their apps.

Remember, these apps are competing with their rivals so they will do anything to have you on it.

And once you're on it, you end up spending hours mindlessly scrolling. You're trapped in the matrix.

Happens to the best of us.

In simple words, we're lab rats.

To know more about HOW this happens behind the scenes, I would recommend watching 'The Social Dilemma' on Netflix. 

A line that resonated with me the most from this documentary was:

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

So ab kya?

The Solution.

When I saw my increasing amounts of time on social media, I decided the best solution was to log off. It's one of the only few effective ways if you have a conscience. Log out and delete it.

Many applications have also realised this and as "user safety", themselves provide the feature to set a time limit on the app and even turn off notifications. I personally recommend using 'focus mode' on your phone if you have that feature.

Thirdly, get yourself another activity. Could be anything that doesn't involve you using your phone. I've tried it and it works. 

And if worse comes to worse, ask someone around you to physically keep your phone far from you.

(My sister exploits this request)

Bottom line is, almost the entire GenZ goes through this (me inclusive) and because we've grown up around these evolving technologies, it's become nearly impossible to completely cut it out of our life.

That was it for today's post. Let me know in the comments below what your average screen time is. Don't forget to share and comment for more content, every Friday!

Signing off,

Kuhu :)