cell-phone-addiction

 

The short answer to that is….kind of?!?

 

A lot of post pictures of our kids, pets, food or other random moments online (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) because we all like that response we get from people when they “like” or “favorite”  something we’ve posted. We’re all guilty of it! We’re probably addicted to it!

 

It’s not that we’re addicted to our phones so much as we are the chemical that gets released in our system when we see response to our posts! Its called DOPAMINE.

 

It’s the same chemical that gets released when drinking alcohol, drugs or even out gambling…which causes an addiction. So, how do we stop?

 

There are some steps you can take to move away from the “addiction” of your phone!  The following steps are written by NIK PARKS for the website ChelseaKrost.com

 

1. Regularly get off the grid

One day a week, I try to avoid social media entirely. It may sound crazy and, admittedly, I don’t always succeed with this goal. I love social media but there’s a lot to be said about living in the moment and making memories. It’s nice to just be.

It’s a lot like a much needed detox.

One of the biggest highlights for 2014 was when my wife and I took a vacation and stayed off social media the entire time. In fact, we kept our phones on airplane mode so we couldn’t be contacted. It was the best vacation of our lives.

2. Create a specific goal

To this day, I sometimes get on Facebook and completely waste time. I click on linkbait and watch random videos of random animals doing random things.

This is one of the reasons I try to avoid Facebook altogether—it’s just a time waster for me. I even uninstalled the app from my phone. I’m not saying Facebook is inherently evil, I just know it isn’t a productive social media platform for me, so I try to avoid it.

You should have a specific goal in mind when you get on social media. Are you sharing your content? Are you engaging with your followers? Are you wanting to connect with new people in your industry? When you have a goal, you’re less likely to wander mindlessly.

3. Kill the vanity metrics

Presumably, most of us love the idea of having a massive following. As enticing as it sounds to have hundreds of thousands of followers, it’s quality over quantity. It’s better to have small community of engaged members than to have a large, superficial network.

Of course, most of us wouldn’t argue with having the best of both worlds: a large, highly engaged community. But building something like that takes time.

If we focus on the numbers too much, they become nothing more than a vanity metric. We shouldn’t seek fulfillment in a number of Retweets or likes. I’m not going to lie, those are definitely great…but they shouldn’t define you.

 

 

There are some other tips to toning down our smartphone addictions from Parallelic.com