7 Strategies to Break Smartphone Addiction
Hi, I’m Dr. Johann D’Souza, and I’m a clinical psychologist specializing in the science of focus.
My average phone use this week was 15 minutes a day (excluding podcasts and GPS) with 20 pickups. Here’s how I do it.
1. Flip Your Default Model of Phone Use
It’s almost impossible (read impossible) to carry a smartphone without being addicted. Most people carry their phone with them at all times, checking notifications as they come in. To break the habit of automatically checking, try the flipped model: default to not carrying your phone with you unless it's necessary (e.g., driving, expecting an important call). When you don’t need it, keep your phone out of sight but in a regular place (so you know where it is), such as a drawer or your bag.
Then, set specific times to check your phone—perhaps before lunch and at the end of the workday. This breaks the habit of responding instantly. Over time, your contacts will adjust their expectations, realizing you’re not immediately reachable. You might be surprised how many “urgent” issues become irrelevant when you stop responding right away.
2. Don’t Sleep with Your Phone Nearby
One study showed that sleep quality is inversely proportional to the proximity of the phone to your head while sleeping. A simple but effective habit is to keep your phone out of the bedroom or out of arm’s reach. Use a traditional alarm clock instead of relying on your phone for waking up, and start your morning with peace and clarity rather than a cortisol spike and hypnotic trance from doom scrolling.
3. Adjust Your Phone’s Settings to Make It Less Appealing
Smartphones and apps are designed to be addictive, but you can adjust the settings to minimize this:
Use a grayscale setting to eliminate attractive colors. You can also set a triple tap feature so that you can switch from grayscale to color by tapping the home button three times.
Reduce screen brightness.
Turn on Night Shift so that your screen becomes dimmer and redder at night, reducing strain and improving sleep quality.
If you’re really hardcore, you can also experiment with color invert so that pictures on websites don’t distract you at all
4. Install an Ad Blocker
Many apps and websites today are filled with highly distracting video and picture ads. Installing an ad blocker on your phone helps reduce exposure to these distracting and often immodest ads, making it easier to stick to your goal.
5. Default to "Do Not Disturb" Mode
Keep your phone on Do Not Disturb by default. You can configure it so that important calls come through if someone calls twice in quick succession, allowing for urgent situations. Let your close friends and family know about this setting so they can reach you in emergencies. You can also set specific contacts (read wife) to be able to break through the DND.
If you need to be reachable for calls, enable calls only, while disabling all other notifications. This protects you from constant interruption.
6. Declutter Your Apps
Cleanse your phone and your soul from the clutter of unnecessary apps:
Delete all apps you haven’t used in the last 3 months.
Turn off notifications for all apps except for calling and messaging apps.
Move calling and messaging apps to a separate screen so that you have to swipe to access them, so that your background attention isn’t activated by accidental exposure to the notification.
Delete your email app and check emails on your computer during set times.
Remove social media and entertainment apps – if it has a doom scroll feature, then consign it to the abyss of non-being.
For apps you use less than once a week, remove their icons from your home screen, to protect your attention from the unnecessary distraction.
7. Simplify Your Phone's Appearance
Finally, simplify the visual presentation by using a solid black background instead of a photo for your home screen and wallpaper. This minimizes distractions and makes your phone feel more like a tool and less like a personal entertainment center in which you are the product not the protagonist.
Free yourself from addiction and become the man or woman that you have been destined from all eternity to be. Perfect the God given faculties of the soul – intellect, free will – that elevate you above all physical creation, and once you are liberated, turn and help others.
