Having and using a smart phone is the norm. But there are some real dangers that come in to play when we use it too much. This video explains why.
Video by BetterThanYesterday
Key Takeaways
In today’s world, having and using a phone is the norm. But there are some real dangers that come in to play when we use it too much.
Some people spend every spare moment of their day on it, and they get so sucked into it, that they end up wasting a lot of time.
Like that guy who says he’s going on a 5 minute break, but takes his phone with him. What was supposed to be a 5 minute break is now a 20 minute break.
Also living your life through your phone makes you asocial and hurts your communication skills. This is because communicating through your phone is very simple compared to communication in real life.
When you’re interacting with another person you need to pay attention to things like eye contact, body language, and facial expressions. It requires a whole different skill set and sadly you can’t practice those skills through your screen.
If you’re trying to connect with people, and only using your phone and social platforms to do so, you’re doing it wrong. That’s not how you form real connections. Real friendships are formed by interaction with one another in realm time.
Sure you can have hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook, but ask yourself, are those the friends that would assist you if you needed help with something? Probably not.
But why do we keep coming back to it? Why can’t we just put our phones down? Well, it’s because they’re highly addictive and they’re designed this way.
- For example; social media companies are spending millions of dollars every single year just to find more ways to make you spend more time on their platform. That’s right, there are people getting paid to keep your attention glued to the screen. Because the more time you spend on their site, the more money they make.
So what they do is they abuse a chemical in your brain called dopamine. Dopamine is released every time we expect some kind of reward and it gives us this feeling of satisfaction. That’s why when someone sends you a text, or when they like your photo, it feels really good.
And we simply love getting that social attention. Every time we get it, we are rewarded with that dopamine hit, which in turn makes us want to use our phones even more. It’s a vicious cycle.
And this exact reason is why we keep going back to it. That dopamine hit makes us feel so good that we can’t stop.
Our brains even begin to rewire themselves, making us crave more of this neurological excitement after each interaction. Sounds a little like taking a drug, right? That’s because in a way, it is a drug.
Doing things like gambling, alcohol or heroin, send dopamine into overdrive, leading some people to constantly seek that high. In other words they become addicted.
Those notifications you get on your phone, also cause dopamine to be released, though not as violently as drugs. So It’s no wonder that today’s kids can’t even bother to look up from their phone. They are addicted to it.
But you might be thinking: “It’s not like my phone is harming ME in any way. Maybe all my friends are addicted to it, but I would know if I was addicted!”
If you think you’re a superhuman that’s immune to this stuff you’re wrong. A good indicator of addiction is randomly checking your phone without thinking about it, to see if you have any new notifications, or just to scroll through social platforms.
This is where a lot of people fail. It’s become a bad mainstream habit to reach for your phone whenever you have 10 seconds of free time. We are constantly distracting ourselves with that new dopamine hit.
We are not allowing ourselves to be bored or be with our thoughts for even a second. And all this mindless phone browsing is harming us in one of the worst ways possible. What we’re doing is destroying our ability to focus and pay attention.
There’s a growing amount of research which tells us that if you spend your time breaking up your attention, to take a glance and just quickly look at Instagram – that this can permanently reduce your capacity for concentration.
There is this concept called attention residue.
- Let’s say you’re trying to write a book. Suddenly a friend jumps out of nowhere and starts bombarding you with questions about where he should go on a vacation.
- First, your mind will remain focused on writing that book. You won’t be able to fully switch to answering any of those questions.
- Then, when the friend leaves, you won’t be able to fully focus on writing again. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’re still thinking about your friends vacation.
- In one study they found that your mind takes about 15 minutes to get your focus back. So with that 2 minute interaction with your friend, you just lost 17 minutes of your work time. That’s not good.
But what does this have to do with our phones?
- When you’re fully focusing on writing that book, if suddenly you get a Facebook notification your attention will instantly become divided. It’s like a friend suddenly jumped through your window and yelled “Hey! I liked your photo.” BOOM, attention residue.
- Since in today’s world we carry our phones with us everywhere, how can we really expect to concentrate on anything? Every time you’re doing something and your phone buzzes, EVEN IF YOU DON’T CHECK IT, you split up your attention.
- Somewhere in the back of your mind there will be a voice saying “What if it’s really important? What if something has happened?” In the end you will most likely end up checking it anyway, because you also want that dopamine hit.
And if you think attention residue doesn’t apply to you, you are wrong. Our brains are simply not made to multitask and we cannot focus on multiple things at once.
This is why driving, while on your phone, is so dangerous. Your attention will be split between two tasks and you won’t be able to react fast enough, if something out of the ordinary happened. Like a car suddenly driving up in front of you.
If you want to keep your focus and actually produce anything of value, you need to become more mindful about how you use both your phone, and social networks.
Two Practical Tips for Focus
1. Consider Deleting Social Media Apps
The first thing to consider is deleting all social media apps from of your phone.
A lot of our phone usage is unconscious behavior. That’s because we are only one click away from mindlessly scrolling through our social platforms. You shift from Facebook to Instagram, to checking the texts, without even thinking about it twice.
You could say that Facebook and other similar apps are like a fridge. You check it every 15 minutes, mainly out of habit, even though you know nothing’s there.
- By removing the apps you basically remove the fridge so there is no way you’ll check it spontaneously. You can still go to instagram.com or facebook.com, if you really needed to, however there is this additional barrier that you have to overcome.
- And since you’re not gonna be just one click away, it’s going to be a conscious decision, and not an impulsive choice.
2. Disable All Notifications
The second step is to disable all notifications.
This applies to everything on your phone. In fact, I encourage you to put your phone on silent.
You don’t have to be interrupted by every “like” that your latest Instagram picture receives. It only makes you more likely to whip out your phone and get in a vicious circle of texting, email checking and who knows what.
- You can disable app notifications in your main settings menu, or customize them so you only get notified about the important stuff.
- You could also turn your phone off when you’re not using it. This way you won’t let messages or any other app notifications split up your attention.
With these two habit changes, you could be happier and more focused.
Try to limit your phone usage for at least 1 week. See how it makes you feel. You might get bored, but you’ll soon realize how much of your time is actually spent mindlessly using your phone.
And just to clarify; I don’t think using your phone is a bad thing. You just need to know how to use it properly. It’s a tool, and like all other tools it depends on how you use it. It’s important to educate the world about its possible dangers.