Abstract:

Expressions like “screen addiction” or “smartphone addiction” conjure up images of basement-dwelling teenagers who never voluntarily leave their rooms. It’s a little harder to wrap our heads around the idea that it could mean – us.

I certainly didn’t think I had any addiction. There was only a vague feeling of having no time for anything anymore and that I should pursue my passions more (me being the passion-and-purpose coach, after all!). Then last summer, I did a screens detox and it was a revelation.

Your mission today is to learn why you might be addicted to screens and how to break free without ditching your phone or computer.

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Background: Is it really an addiction?

The short answer is yes. To elaborate a little: Just like salty snacks are flavoured in a way that makes you crave more and more, “screen content” – be it online or even on TV is created in such a way that our attention invariably gets sucked in.

In other words, it’s not your fault if you’re on your phone too much. This type of thing started when home computers weren’t a thing and some people simply watched TV all day. However, the addiction ingredients have become much more sophisticated since.

Basically, there’s an army of highly trained professionals like psychologists working on keeping us hooked. Stop feeling bad about it. You never stood a chance.

Task: Break screen addiction

Some people literally throw out their smartphones, but I don’t think you need to go that far. After all, phones and computers are brilliant machines that can make our lives a lot easier. Here are 3 steps to take:

1. Do a detox. For a weekend, better still a whole week, don’t use any screens at all. For ideas on how to manage it, check out this video.

2. Delete social media apps from your phone. Only keep what you really need (maps, bank apps, public transport etc.).

3. Check emails and social media 2-3 times a day at particular times. Set an alarm for 5 or 10 minutes, and when it goes off, close the tab or window and stop.

Bonus tip: Read Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus. It’s brilliant and highly thought provoking.

Reclaim your time! You’ll be astonished at how much space there will be for your passions all of a sudden.

Transkript

Here follows the exact transcript of everything that’s being said in the video. The same text can be found as subtitles in the video itself; you can activate them on the bottom right.

You're not a failure for spending too much time with your screens - and neither do you have to move to a desert island in order to kick the habit.

Hello, welcome to this week's Wild Spirits News. My name is Sibylle, and I help women between 40 and 60 to do lots of what they love and to find their unique life purpose. If that sounds interesting, check out my website, wildspiritscoaching.com.

Today's topic is 'Overcoming screen addiction without going off the grid altogether'. Terms like screen addiction or smartphone addiction conjure up images of basement-dwelling teenagers who never voluntarily leave their room. It's a bit harder to wrap our heads around the fact that it might mean - us. I certainly never thought that I had an addiction. I did have the vague feeling that I never had time for anything anymore and that I should spend, or wanted to spend more time with my passions - being the passions-and-purpose coach, after all. But I wouldn't have applied the term addiction to myself. Then last year in the summer, I did a one-week screen detox, and it was a revelation. So your mission today is to find out why you might be addicted to screens and how you can break the addiction without having to throw out your computer.

Background

The background to this is 'Is it really an addiction?' The short answer is: Yes! The slightly more elaborate answer is: It's a bit, you could liken it to those salty snacks like crisps where you can't just eat one, you crave more instantly, and that's by design. They're formulated like this, whatever, the spice mix or whatever it is, the flavor mix is formulated in a way that it keeps you eating.

And the same goes for our minds and the online content that we consume. This online content, be it on social media, even on TV to a degree, especially these days, is designed to suck in our attention and to keep us watching and to keep us scrolling and to keep us reading and so on and so forth.

In other words, it's not your fault. These online contents that we are consuming have become so much more sophisticated, although all of this started long before computers and the internet, years ago it used to be people just being hooked to their TVs and watching TV all day. Like I said, it has become a lot more sophisticated, but the principle is the same: They just keep your attention, keep you hooked. There is literally an army of highly trained professionals these days, psychologists, behavioral scientists and so forth, whose whole job is to create content in a way, online content that will keep us hooked. So please don't feel bad about yourself. You never stood a chance in the first place.

Task

The task is 'Break screen addiction'. Now some people literally throw out their smartphones and go back to dumb phones, but I think that's not really necessary and after all, our smartphones and computers and the internet bring so many advantages make our lives a lot easier. They are actually a good thing in principle. So it would be a shame to do without all that. Here are three steps that you can take and that have helped me to step back from this and get a handle on my online habits once again. I've written them down:

Number one is 'Do a detox'. For a weekend or better still, an entire week, stay away from screens altogether. How to do this, how to handle it with your friends, family, maybe work, I have documented my own screen-detox week, and there you can get a few hints. I'll link that video in one of the corners up there, right? You can have a look.

The second one is to 'Delete social media apps from your smartphone'. You can even delete messengers if you want to go that far and tell your people. You just have to retrain your people to either phone you like we did in the 80s and 90s or to send you an email instead. You can do that; I have friends who do it. But at least the social media should be gone from your phone, the likes of Facebook and Instagram. You can check all of those online, on the computer. That means you need to sit down in order to check them and that is already a deterrent, right? So get the, get rid of them from your phone. Just turning off the notifications in my experience doesn't do it.

And the third step is to 'Check emails and social media two or maybe three times a day only'. So if you're on your computer, especially if you work on your computer, it's very important to keep those windows or those tabs in your browser closed at all other times, because otherwise it's just too tempting. And two or three times a day, you open them, check your emails, reply, check your messages, check your social media and set a timer for five or 10 minutes, maybe 15 if you're comfortable with that, and when that timer goes off, you close those windows or tabs again, and that was it. A bonus tip is, a bonus step is, read the book 'Stolen Focus'. It is so good, it's a huge eye opener and really gets you thinking. I can only warmly recommend you to reclaim your time and your life. It makes a huge difference and you'll be very surprised how much time you suddenly have for your passions, hobbies and interests and for the things that really matter to you.

Let me know

This brings me to the last point which is as usual 'Let me know'. Leave a comment below the video or reply to the email that you got the link to the video with and tell me what your stance is on social media. There'll never be any judgment from me. Trust me, I've been there, and again, it's not our fault. This is by design. So I'd love to hear from you. And like I said, if you're interested, then check out my website, wildspiritscoaching.com. You can also sign up for the Wild Spirits News there, which is a community news, one email per week, so 100% spam free, and I always include actually useful information that you don't get anywhere else, so it's actually worth it to sign up for it. It's not just some email marketing spam newsletter. I'd love to have you. Have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!