I've tried setting timers for certain apps, but I find myself deactivating them again and again. In the past, I've had phones that allowed me to lock myself out for an hour, which worked but was a bit annoying when I had to do something else on the phone. I wish I could lock myself out of certain apps for certain time periods with no way of deactivating it outside these time periods, e.g. Instagram, Reddit or youtube only allowed between 8PM and 10PM.
Another problem is the urge to immediately grab the phone whenever I have nothing to do. I've had success putting the phone in a bottom drawer turned off over the weekend, but that's not always feasible. Perhaps some training would be helpful, or an app that would gamify the aspect of not constantly unlocking your phone.
Thank you for sharing - it's really hard to fight human psychology. Did you try to download apps to control screentime? There are already some solutions out there, though none of them are perfect.
- First, I'm now aware that phone overuse is an issue. This wasn't obvious a year ago, even though I used it even more.
- Analyze my usage patterns. For example, I'd get a message on some app, open it, and end up doomscrolling. It helped me to change my notification settings so that I only get emails. That way, I can check it on the computer later, where I usually waste less time.
- I agree that gamifying is a good idea. It's precisely the main feature of the app I'm working on. Not only that, but building a "community": I started to talk about this problem with friends and learned from them. It also makes me more accountable; my girlfriend will nudge me to leave the phone alone if I'm stuck, for example.
Getting a (useful) notification and drifting off to other stuff is definitely a problem. Interestingly, a smart watch has helped me with that. I now read notifications on the watch, and about 75% of the time I don't have to take out my phone anymore.
